Internal Degunino

About

Moscow Museum of Modern Art presents Pavel Otdelnov’s "Internal Degunino" project, which contains a series of scaled paintings. The exhibition is a result of psycho geographical researches of West Degunino, one of Moscow districts, where industrial zones make up almost two-thirds of the territory. As well as in all outlying districts there appear new trade and logistic centers, which look foreign in the dull Russian landscape and seem to exist out of time. The artist tries to catch the present, escaping from the view, and creates an image of the contemporary Russian landscape. Pavel Otdelnov detects the signs of the reality, invisible to the eyes, i.e. post-Soviet vast areas with power lines, going off to nowhere, and P44 series panel buildings.

The project is specially prepared for the MMOMA “Debut” program. Since 2006, MMOMA has been presenting artists, engaged in photography, video, object and installation art, painting and media performance. In recent years, there has been a tendency of return of painting in the context of the latest trends of contemporary art. More and more young artists turn to painting as a medium, which has a great visual potential and a rich cultural background. The "Internal Degunino" project is a good example of the artist’s use of the language of painting to solve his artistic and conceptual tasks. The project creates an expressive image of vast empty spaces of the city suburbs. The characters of Pavel Otdelnov’s paintings are subway passengers or P44 series panel buildings, or bright shopping centers. Thus, the artist recreates the atmosphere of life of an urban inhabitant. In his paintings the surrounding real objects are a part of the scenery to be watched from the window of the car rather than a part of the reality. Every day millions of people pass this way, followed by power lines, and erase it from their life, treating it as a period of meaningless solitude.