Pop art painting was the hit of Russian art of the noughties and played an equal part in the consumer boom, as is evidenced by the artistic careers of the Moscow duo Vinogradov-Dubossarsky. The accent in Maslov’s painting however is not on the packaged gloss of pop art but on the inevitable rebirth of art into a product of massconsumer demand. “Cheerful Friends”, where one wants to be lost in their closeness, leads to the roots of pop-art philosophy about life in a state of flux “near the earth”. Even today the light that illuminates the space of dahlias and the vibrant faces of pansies strikes our imagination and seems unforgettable, next summer will be different, and we, like peas from the same pod, live as long as we participate in the endless waves of the economy of nature.
Ekaterina Andreeva, exhibition curator