Last Next Winter

--- Präsentationshinweise

Unter dem Titel “Last Next Winter” waren vier Videos, Format 4:3, 1-Kanal, gruppiert, zusammengestellt von der Kuratorin Andrea Domesle. Die Videos haben eine Soundspur, werden auf den eBoards  jedoch ohne Ton gezeigt, so dass die Basler Stadtgeräusche ausnahmsweise den Sound bilden:

- „Last Next Winter“, 2011, 4.40 Min.

- „Pokrov“ (Cover) 2011, 4.40 Min.

- „Russian Red White“, 2009, 2 Min.

- „The One Following Me“, 2006, 3 Min. (nur auf den eBoards des Congress Center Basel)

01.06. – 06.08.2017  wurden die Videos mit einigen Ausnahmen täglich zwischen anderen Infos des eBoard Congress Center Basel, Messeplatz 21 beim Swissôtel Le Plaza und zudem ab Juli auf den eBoards der City Lounge gezeigt sowie 01.06. – 18.06.2017 täglich im GLOBUS Basel-Schaufenster am Marktplatz 2 von 8 bis 24 Uhr.

videocity.bs freute sich sehr, dem Basler Publikum eine Schweizer Premiere bieten zu können. Yuri Vassiliev gehört zu den wichtigsten russischen Videokünstlern und war hier noch nie zu sehen. Unter dem Titel “Last Next Winter” vereint videocity.bs vier seiner Videos auf den 

eBoards des Congress Center Basel sowie in der Mediathek der HGK FHNW  und drei seiner Videos in einem Schaufenster von GLOBUS Basel.  Das hier präsentierte Video hat den Titel des Screenings bzw. der monographischen Präsentation gegeben, ausgewählt von der Kuratorin Andrea Domesle.

Gleichzeitig widmet das National Centre of Contemporary Art in Moskau Yuri Vassiliev die Einzelausstellung „Common Russian Red“ vom 7. Juni bis 16. Juli, die hiermit wärmstens empfohlen wird. See http://www.ncca.ru/events.text?filial=2&id=4156

--- Notes on Presentation

Under the title of “Last Next Winter” four videos are brought together, format 4:3, 1-canal, grouped by the curator Andrea Domesle. The videos have a soundtrack, but during videocity.bs they are however shown without sound on the eBoards, so that the Basel city sounds for once provide their unique sound track:

- “The One Following Me”, 2006, 3 mins. (not shown in the GLOBUS Basel display window)

- “Russian Red White”, 2009, 2 mins.

- “Last Next Winter”, 2011, 4.40 mins.

- “Pokrov” (Cover) 2011, 4.40 mins.

videocity.bs is pleased to be presenting the Basel public with a Swiss premiere again. Yuri Vassiliev is numbered among the most important Russian video artists of today but has never so far been presented here in person before. Under the title of “Last Next Winter” three of his video works are brought together in the GLOBUS Basel display window and four videos on the eBoards of the Congress Center Basel and on the screen of the Media Library FHNW.

Simultaneously the National Centre of Contemporary Art in Moscow is dedicating a solo exhibition “Common Russian Red” to Yuri Vassiliev, which we would like here to highly recommend. It is on view from June 7 to July 16.

See http://www.ncca.ru/events.text?filial=2&id=4156

 --- Description of the Work

Yuri Vassiliev's central themes are the Russian winter and the Russian Avantgarde colour red. He approaches both of them on a symbolic level. Humans, often as solitary figures and not recognizable as  individuals, totter disorientated now here, now there. The protagonists are exposed to the perils of nature in the videos in existential ways, their doings appearing pointless and cut out of time. 

Yuri Vassiliev makes his videos with a small hand camera, which follows the activities of his performers. The field of view sways with every step and sometimes it seems as if the body relations to which we are accustomed, and the familiar relations we associate with these are completely inverted. A face bends down giant-like, appearing from above into the image...

Yuri Vassiliev counts among the most important Russian video artists of our times. He confronts the avante garde concepts of Kasimir Malewitsch with his post modern, existential view of Being and artistic practice. Vassiliev predominantly uses single videos or photographs or employs them in spatial installations.  His motifs are the winter and people in the landscape, who he brings together with Malewitsch's basic elements, the black square and the cross and the pure, powerful avante garde colour of red. Thanks to sophisticated compositions Yuri Vassiliev shows that realistic representation and suprematist non-objectivity are not mutually exclusive and that they even interlock. The ideas of innovation, Utopia, setting forth, independance and resistance are all examined in his artworks, drawing on basic human experiences. Especially in winter in the barren Russian wastelands, these ideas are rubbed up against bitter, harsh, existential struggles. A human life, just the same as the avante garde's claims to innovational and absolute validity, is confronted with the violence of the natural forces, and gets caught up like the fly in a spider's web.

In the course of examing Malewitsch's idea that pictorial worlds reflect the „pure sensibilities“ of the artist, Yuri Vassiliev demonstrates that he is a skilfull artist-philosopher who uses the possibilities which are immanent to video and photography for the purpose of reflection. It also becomes clear that he is an artist who is not only intimately bound to the culture, but also to the experiential worlds of his mother country. 

Andrea Domesle  (translation: Christopher Haley Simpson)

L'hiver russe et la couleur d'avant-garde rouge sont parmi les thèmes de prédilection de Yuri Vassiliev. Il les traite tous les deux sur le plan symbolique. Des personnages, souvent seuls et pas reconnaissables, titubent désorientés. Les protagonistes des vidéos sont exposés existentiellement aux aléas de la nature; leurs actions semblent être dénuées de sens et intemporelles.

Yuri Vassiliev a filmé avec une caméra portable pour suivre l'action de ses acteurs.  Le cadrage tangue à chaque pas et parfois les relations corporelles habituelles sont bouleversées, et avec elles les rapports familiers. Un visage géant se penche sur l'image d'en haut....

Andrea Domesle  (traduction Jean-Marie Clarke)

https://readymag.com/sobornost/russianred/