Contemporary art gallery Anna Nova presents the first solo exhibition of Moscow artist David Ter-Oganyan in St. Petersburg.
Provocative title is fully consistent with the main message of the project. This kind of title was made possible after the advent of computers, when it became necessary to quickly name the work. It is often done to the 'waste' in one’s computer.
On the other hand, David Ter-Oganyan approaches the title of his exhibition in a Dadaist way: according to him, he was just banging on the keys and he liked the noise of it.
David Ter-Oganyan’s exhibition at St. Petersburg gallery Anna Nova consists of two parts.
On the first floor there are the pictures transformed from small graphic originals into big static ones. Referencing Kurt Schwitters and surrealists the artist uses the method similar to Andy Warhol’s one, however it’s not the picture he conceptualizes but the art of painting itself; the most important thing here is not playing with the scale, but rather, the process of conversion from one formal plane into another.
On the second floor statics comes alive and graphics stays within the bounds of graphics. There are four slide-shows, photo frames with graphical works and musical installations – Ter-Oganyan’s project of 2003-2004, which the author calls ‘radical popular electronic music’.
The key elements for a logical continuation of this game are the objects by which the artist invites a viewer to perform some particular acts outside the exhibition space... These objects have several components. The pack of cigarettes is for a quiet smoke, contemplating the further strategy. Alcohol is for relaxing, here it’s more like bait. And finally, there comes the moment to do something real – to take a spray can of paint and act. The gallery is a bourgeois, society element. Ter-Oganyan uses this situation to ‘lead the viewer outside, into the street’
Katya Shadkovska