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until 23.04 | #0457ARTatBerlin | Diehl CUBE presents from the 17. März 2016 the exhibition “Internet doesn’t allow me to forget you” with the artists Julia Nefedova and Lena Vazhenina.
…. a special kind of exhibition project.
Social media platforms have been facilitating encounters for several years now but I would never have thought that a virtual encounter on Facebook could result in an exhibition and a book but I really rather liked the idea.
When I first saw Julia’s posts on Facebook I knew right away that she was special, and in fact rather more than just different. She was a small, highly charged universe unto herself. She radiated a singular autonomy that grabbed me right away. Initially it was her strange and exotic photographs: Julia in Paris by night, doing a headstand in the middle of the road; Julia as Shiva; or in any number of brazen, provocatively erotic photographs that also managed to tell some sort of funny or weird narrative story. Then there were strange Instagram photos of foodstuff arrangement, or the Barbie dolls in various disturbed states of grim disfigurement. I often wondered whether many of these images were some sort of diary. But I knew for sure that this was someone who had something more to say than all the girls and models who post cats and dogs ad nauseam or spend the greater part of their time in selfieland.
Then she started posting more and more of her drawings all of a sudden. This was when we actually got in touch. Her first drawings were clumsy, but they had promise. I started giving her the odd pointer here and there like a teacher. Our friendship took its course. I was under no illusions; it was more of an experiment than anything. There were no preconceptions. But with every drawing her line and composition became more assured. The stories she tells are contemporary in the best sense of the word; the Zeitgeist of a young woman who, after all, belongs to a completely different generation, though this only added to my curiosity. And then there were the portrait photographs of her friend Lena Vazhenina; photos, drawings, Instagram posts, captions, one-liners…Julia’s world. Women who are though perhaps not always lonesome but ‘alonesome’, dwelling in a world where childish and apparently straightforward realities coexist with the darker sides of the human soul.
The texts in the book come from Aleksandra v. Luxburg – brief snapshots that say a great deal when read in conjunction with the drawings, though they also allow the viewer to construct his own ‘rhymes’ and narratives.
Lena Vazhenina is the perfect pendant and counterpart in this artists’ alliance. Her precise, disciplinarian arrangements transpose Julia into an array of feminine roles that interact quite brilliantly with the drawings. Lena’s affectionate, sympathetic eye creates a world in which the two artists complement each other perfectly through beauty, transformation, lasciviousness, eroticism, play and an infallible sense of timing.
Volker Diehl
The exhibition will be accompanied by a book.
Vernissage: Thursday, 17th March 2016, 7:00 – 9:00 Uhr
Exhibition period: Friday, 18th March to Saturday, 23rd April 2016
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Bildunterschrift: via Diehl CUBE – Julia Nefedova + Lena Vazhenina
Exhibition Julia Nefedova + Lena Vazhenina – Diehl CUBE – Kunst in Berlin ART at Berlin
