The Fourth Height + Urs Bigler | THE CROWN | 29 March — 5 May 2011
POBEDA Gallery is proud to present a new project by The Fourth Height art group — The Crown. The group con-sists of three Russian artists: Dina Kim, Katya Kameneva and Gala Smirnskaya. Since the nineties it is reckoned as a part of Moscow conceptualist circle.
Artists define their own style as “multicultural trash-dreaming” as their work reflect mass cul¬ture through irony and fantasy. Raising post-War and feminist issues through the aesthetics of fashion and the iconography of sex and femininity, The Fourth Height addresses the Soviet past and Capitalist present. Violence and aggression may mislead a viewer into a shallow reading, but the subjects raised go deeply into Russia’s history and folklore.
The artists live and work in different countries and execute work quite rarely due to the research-based nature of their projects. Their best- known series’ The Deed, The Taste of Victory and Gene Pool — are already in the Tretyakov Gallery, Russian Museum, Moscow Museum of Modern Art and many private collections abroad.
Their newest project was made in collaboration with Swiss photographer Urs Big¬ler and is the photographer’s first working experience with an art group from Russia.
SOMEWHERE IN RUSSIA EUROPE MEETS ASIA
Their current project The Crown is a mythical novel of love and heroism between three main characters Russia, Eu¬rope and Asia-Panda. The battle between Good and Evil based on Asian and Europe folklore takes place in the middle of Russia. In Russian traditional culture, the rebellion of the “Three Knights” (Tri Bogatirya) is a prime epic story often associated with the Rus¬sian mentality. The artists bring a critical and playful aesthetic approach to provide a new interpretation for the nature of heroism. Here they once again re-examine impulsive heroic ges-tures often associated with femininity.
So here they are: the Three Knights, also known as Russia, Europe and Asia, the three-headed dragon — the new superheroes of the planet.