An exhibition of the legendary Odessa artist Igor Gusev will open at the Odessa Museum of Western and Eastern Art on February 20.

The artist Igor Gusev is known for his actions on the streets and in unexpected places, his “art raiding” is inspired by the situational search for an aura of things, artifacts and works of art. But he has different strategies for working in museums. In February, in # Ragtime2.0 - a underfloor space of the Museum of Western and Eastern Art, Gusev shows the project "Distant songs".

These projects represent the idea of ​​a metamuseum: a special dimension in space and time in which art objects have unlimited connections. Gusev views a work of art as a state of a special cultural layer, which, depending on the context, easily changes its content.

Igor Gusev believes that today an artist does not have to look for an individual language. The protective mask on the face makes everyone equally unidentified, therefore, there is no individuality. There is only loneliness.

In the new project, the viewer will see images of famous European works in a transformed form: Gusev combines music, poetry and images, following the artistic practice of synesthesia, mixing the properties of various types of art in one work. With the help of quotation and defragmentation, the artist shows the fragility of the natural, basic state of man: the state of freedom.

The world has changed. We are encouraged to keep our distance from each other: live events, meetings have become an exception, artists are closed in workshops, and the border between digital and living is becoming more and more conventional. V. Benjamin's theory of the reproducibility of art was fully implemented.

Ekaterina Mikheitseva, curator of the project

In the project "Distant songs" viewers will not see the usual glitch effect, which is often expected from Gusev. This time Igor Gusev goes beyond the border of visual and decorative possibilities, changes the quality - not so much the visuality is deformed, but the fabric of the image itself, its space.

The reality of Gusev's works, as always, is plastic and flexible, but now it describes the time and dimension of alienation, shows the space of famous European works of art in conditions of submission to artificial rules of social distance.

The exhibition will run from February 20 to March 20, 2021