Аndrey Kuzkin
Paris, France
March '22 - present '23
Winner of the All-Russian contemporary visual art competition "Innovation" (nominations "New Generation", 2008 and "Book of the Year" 2017), the "Companion" award (2009, 2010, 2011) and the Kandinsky Prize (nomination "Project of the Year" in 2016 and 2021).
The artist has participated in numerous group projects, including the Krasnoyarsk Museum Biennale (2009, 2011, 2015), the Berlin Biennale (2010), the project "Modernikon. Contemporary Art from Russia" (Turin, Venice, 2010), the Performa 11 Biennale (New York, 2011), "The End of the World" (Prato, 2016), the Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (2015, 2019), the Russian Contemporary Art Triennale (Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow 2020) and others.
The works are in the collections of the Georges Pompidou National Center for Art and Culture (Paris), the State Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow), the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, the State Center for Contemporary Art (Moscow), etc.
In his activities, he often turns to performative and actionist practices. The main issues he is interested in are existential concerns that trouble every human being: the confrontation of life and death, the mortality and the disappearance of the human body. Drawing on a conceptualist approach in his work, the artist uses various media - graphics, painting, sculpture and installation.
BREAD PEOPLE. 2022-23
The small sculptures Bread People were created by the artist on his arrival in Paris after his abrupt departure from Russia. Andrei Kuzkin sculpted them using everyday objects found in the basement of the house where he lived. In this way, the artist was literally settling into his new home. Bread, in this case, symbolises the frailty of the human body. Here the Christian symbolism of bread is combined with the tradition of bread moulding in prison.
NEW YEAR'S BLACK HOLES. 2023
graphics series
PHENOMENON OF NATURE OR 99 LANDSCAPES WITH A TREE №74. 2023
performance at the HUS gallery, Paris
I WANT THE WAR TO END. 2023
A series of performative graphics consisting of several sheets of paper, each quote the phrase I Want the War to End in four languages - Ukrainian, Russian, French, and English. The time spent creating these sheets becomes intangible capital and an important component of this work.
"A strong desire, which in no way can be realized, has no direct outlet and as a result is sublimated into these graphic sheets..."
MIX
(blood, shit, war) "blood" is written in blood, "shit" with feces, "war" is written with a mixture of blood and feces
solo exhibitions
2023 – Who Am I?, Église Réformée Wallonne de La Haye;
2023 – Phénomène naturel ou 99 paysages avec un arbre, Galerie Hus, Paris.
publications
2023 – How Andrey Kuzkin flipped Paris on its head, Art Focus Now, by Anastasia Spirenkova;
2022 – Art of dissent: How Russians protest the war on Ukraine, The Washington Post, by Robyn Dixon, Mary Ilyushina and Natalia Abbakumova;
2022 – The present of Russian artists after the invasion of Ukraine. What two writers talk about anti-war and art Ekaterina Muromtseva and Andrei Kuskin, Tokyo Art Beat, by Wakana Kouno