“ADVENTURES OF THE BODY“ SHOW, GROUND SOLYANKA, MOSCOW, RUSSIA (March - April 2021)
Adventures of the Body is a set of unnecessary episodes, spontaneous (but inevitable in the meantime) reactions and schemes which happen between the human flesh and the surrounding situation. The outcome of these reactions and schemes are the photographic images where this very body becomes an object but also a co-creator.
The Adventures of the Body pursue a double objective: first of all, to tell the audience the news that occurred in the life of the artist in the last five years, and, secondary, to reinvent the medium of such exhibition, encouraging the audience to become if not a co-creator then at least a crime partner to the artist and a photographer. The works are hung using a specific cord/pulley system under the selling. To have a closer look an audience member has to put a physical effort to pull the cord so the work could literally come down to the eye level of the spectator. These images made by various of FPA’s photographer collaborators depict the artist’s body in various, natural and not so, situations and are enclosed in the specific cloth covers using the Russian Orthodox Church approach towards the framing of the icons. These covers focus the attention of the audience on certain elements of the images. This way of framing the works not just outlines the principles of life sculpture which is typical for performance art but also pushes the spectator towards thinking: what is more valuable, a frame or what’s enclosed in it? Both the narcissistic flirting of Fyodor Pavlov-Andreevich and his profound humility manifest here in parallel and the most paradoxical way.
