Batteries not included

About

Whilst the batteries are not included, what we discover in the exhibition is a magical atmosphere bound to the technological and scientific developments distinguishing Fishkin’s work; always approached in a post-conceptual, light, ingenious and ironic key. Vadim was born in the mid-1960s in the Soviet Union, which was rapidly passing from a rural economy to a modern and industrialized one, producing large quantities of consumer goods and household appliances. All of this within a climate of enthusiasm for space exploration and scientific innovation that soon dissolved with the Union.

Vadim Fishkin represented Russia at the Venice Biennale in 1995, Slovenia (his adopted homeland) at the 2005 Venice Biennale and exhibited at the “VIVA ARTE VIVA” exhibition of the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017. Main museums that have hosted his personal exhibitions: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston), fjk3 - Contemporary Art Space (Vienna), Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova (Ljubljana), Kunstverein (Rosenheim), Contemporary Art Center (Moscow), the Museum of Modern art (Zagreb).

Vadim Fishkin (1965 Penza, USSR)

Enchantment and disenchantment, apogee and dissolution. There is no magic, quoting a well- known work of his. But there is a comet in the sky, or so he thinks as he sees it. In reality it is a hairdryer that moves a lightbulb: technology conquering space (Moving Stars). Another lightbulb, with the power cable disconnected, remains illuminated atop its podium (Unplugged), whilst two more bulbs, painted yellow and orange, could respectively signify moonlight and the glow of the sun (Moonlight - Sunrise). A fan seemingly blows the image of sheets of paper around the wall of the main gallery (Windy), while other painted lightbulbs alternately illuminate what appears to be entirely normal paper sheets (Bulbs). The Linea (fragment) by Piero Manzoni, created around 1959 and made available by the RAMO Collection, is in dialogue with Fishkin’s Hanging Lines, drawn freehand, poetically uncertain, and suspended with paperclips placed at the edges of the drawings. It all seems magical and strange, the Fishkian world. A world where the collecting of a Herbarium is facilitated by faux-embroidery on toilet paper, and two pencils write while sharing the same lead (Sharing). So as to avoid thinking about the frenzied pace and everyday trials of modern times, he darkens the clock face (Dark Times), and tries to balance all possible worlds (What Can I do for the World). The countdown has begun.

Public collections: Center Pompidou (Paris), Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst (Antwerp), Fondazione Nomas (Rome), Center National des arts plastiques (Paris), Sammlung EVN (Maria Enzersdorf), Moderna Galerija (Ljubljana), Museum of Contemporary Art ( Zagreb), National Center for Contemporary Art (Moscow), Russian Museum of St. Petersburg (St. Petersburg).

Selection of institutional exhibitions: “Solar Breath”, ERES Stiftung, Munich, Germany, “Humans and Demons”, Steirischer Herbst, Graz, Austria, “Superluminal”, LAM light art museum, Budapest, “Growing Out? Growing Up? Contemporary Art Collecting in the Baltics”, Zuzeum Art Centre, Riga, “Cold Front from the Balkans”, Pera Museum, Istanbul, “Rotterdam Cultural Histories #9, MANIFESTA 1 REVISITED”, Witte de With, Rotterdam, “Substantial influence”, Bayer Kulturhaus, Leverkusen, “Manifesta 10”, The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg in 2014, “9th Shanghai Biennale” – Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai in 2012, “Eurasia. Geographic crossovers in art”, Mart, Rovereto, “Speed 3”, IVAM, Valencia, “Common Destination”, Drawing Center, New York, “This Is Not America”, Braverman ByArtProjects, Tel Aviv, “EVN Collection”, MUMOK, Vienna, “Mediterraneans. Contemporary Art”, MACRO Museum, Rome, “Berlin – Moscow / Moscow – Berlin”, Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin, “communication between the arts”, The 1st Valencia Biennial, Valencia, “Its a better world”, Wiener Secession, Vienna, “Monumental Propaganda”, Central House of Artist, Moscow, Courtyard Gallery of The World Financial Center, New York.