Chianciano Art Museum Critical Analysis Artist: Kuzma Vostrikov Art Critic: Karen Lappon 1
ICAC International Confederation of Art Critics Critical Analysis Artist: Kuzma Vostrikov Art Critic: Karen Lappon
The Museum The Museum of Art of Chianciano hosts a series of collections ranging from Neolithic and Asiatic to Contemporary art. There are approximately a thousand works on display. Visitors are able to view paintings and sculptures by artists such as Tom Nash, Salvador Dali, Sir Henry Moore, Frances Turner, Mario Schifano, Damien Hirst, Brian Willsher and Albert Louden, drawings by the likes of Magritte, Guttuso and Munch; historical works from Royal Collections and original etchings by masters such as Dürer and Rembrandt. The museum is known for organising annual international events, including the Chianciano International Art Award and the Biennale of Chianciano. Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) Joachim and the Angel Original woodcut, circa 1504 4
Sir Henry Moore (1898-1986) Head Bronze Sculpture 5
6 ICAC International Confederation of Art Critics
The Critic Karen Lappon, born in Santander, Spain, is an Italian art critic and essay writer that operates in London, UK. Although an expert on the Italian Renaissance period, Lappon is also great admirer of contemporary art. Karen studied at the I Liceo Artistico in Via Ripetta and at the La Sapienza University in Rome. A book of great interest curated by Karen is the 2nd Millenium, the publication of an important exhibition at the Lord Leighton Museum, in which the talent and art of the prominent painter, Frances Turner - selected 5 times in a row for the BP Award at the National Portrait Gallery in London - is highlighted. This artist has been spotted and appreciated by another great critic, Normal Searle, that wrote an article in the Evening Standard on one of Frances paintings. Vita e Opere di Antonio Sbrana is a publication in which Lappon ties the activity of Sbrana and his influences on the Macchiaioli of the 19th century, like Natali and Fattori. A publication that illustrates the continuity of this movement and how it is still present in Italy today. Besides being a consultant for the Chianciano Museum of Art, Karen Lappon is part of the Board that selects artists for the Biennale, a difficult task that she has undertaken since 2009, along with other curators, to choose 100 artists out of 2000 applicants that will be part of the Chianciano Biennale. Karen is part of the jury of the London Biennale where 120 artists, selected from 40 different countries participate, and has been chosen by the organisers to accompany the Mayor of Kensington and Chelsea during the opening of the biennale. 7
8 Breeze of New York Portrait, Episode Six - Archival pigment print
The Artist Kuzma Vostrikov was born in 1977 in New York. He started his art career as an editor and writer in 1996. Since 2007 he has been working as an producer and director in art cinematography field. In 2008 he founded an independent film company named Kuzmacinema: www.kuzmacinema.com Between 2008-2011 the company has produced four art movies that participated more than 50 film festivals around the world. www.imdb.me/kuzma.vostrikov Since 2011 Kuzma Vostrikov has been working in experimental photography, connected with social networks and psychology: www.kuzmavnutriva.com His long-term art project called One thousand photos in which I have never been is studying social connections through aesthetics and mass media psychology on Facebook. Since 2015 Vostrikov creates the second part of the orange project. In 2016 he has been working on the art project Just to land in Tokyo. It includes photography and a novel with the same title. Today Kuzma works and lives in New York. 9
Four thirty-three Archival pigment print 10
The Critique Kuzma Vostrikov is an explosive American artist that defies categorisation. Terms such as Pop Art, Postmodernism and Avantgarde easily suggest themselves when faced with Kuzma s work for the first time. He was born in New York and has a background in film having worked as a producer, director and cinematographer, so easy comparisons with the cult figure of Andy Warhol are perhaps inevitable. This background has obviously influenced his work in photography and digital imaging, and his widescreen, cinematic approach to his work is self-evident. It is probably a natural arena for the multidisciplinary artist. There are also elements of Performance Art in his work, in the way that he uses the human body, his one in particular, as a sculptural element in the composition. Kuzma s figures seem to exist in an aseptic, impersonal dimension. We are easily engaged in a two-way exchange of emotions with the figures that resemble us most and through these, we acknowledge the presence of the figures that do not belong to the sphere of our everyday life. Nonetheless we can see, maybe hear or even sense them in their alien representation of the message, always delivered with underlying irony, on our lifelong search for the incoherent duality between glamour and simplicity. Symbols of power and consumerism are exaggerated, excessive, hyperbolic and magnified in their imposing and grandiosely preponderant presence. All is envisaged through the filter of a virtuality that has coerced us into a false sense of potency and control over the illusory reality created by technological advancements in communication mediums. Themes that were central to philosophical, moral, ethical and socio-political debates are faced with an emoticon filled smiley, light-hearted, superficiality which mirrors our times, our smartphone dimension, our 4.5 universe. If, as Leonard Baskin said, Pop Art is the inedible raised to the unspeakable, then Kuzma Vostrikov s art is the haute cuisine of the cult of the social media modernity. Karen Lappon International Confederation of Art Critics 11
Just to land in Tokyo Episode one - Archival pigment print One thousand photos in which I have never been Episode 638 - Archival pigment print 12
Breeze of New York Portrait, Episode Seven - Archival pigment print 13
14 Just to land in Tokyo Episode Two - Archival pigment print
In the ocean of Saturn Archival pigment print 15
16 International Confederation of Art Critics www.international-confederation-art-critics.org