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until 20.03. | #4909ARTatBerlin | Galerie Volker Diehl shows from 17. January 2026 (Opening: 16.01.) the exhibition Shadow of the Future by the artist Irina Zatulovskaya.
Irina Zatulovskaya (*1954) emerged on the Moscow exhibition scene during the years of Perestroika—a period in which censorship eased and nonconformist artistic practices became increasingly visible. Moving away from the traditional canvas, she turned to rough found materials, including metal sheets, wood fragments, limestone, and fabrics.
Her engagement with stone materials developed in the late 1980s and stems from an early fascination with fresco painting. Even her small-format works retain a monumental presence. Biblical themes as well as scenes from rural and village life form central cycles within her oeuvre, often overlapping and conveying a worldview in which the everyday is imbued with sacred significance. Zatulovskaya is also a poet, and literature therefore plays an essential role in her work. She created extensive portrait series of artists, thinkers, and writers—from Socrates and Plato to Fyodor Dostoevsky. Despite the apparent lightness and simplicity of her visual language, her art is deeply rooted in the visual memory of world culture, ranging from ancient painting to the avant-garde of the twentieth century.
Her work is often associated with Arte Povera, a classification that is only partially accurate. Whereas the Italian movement employed “poor” materials to dissolve painting in favor of conceptual installations and performances, Zatulovskaya has never abandoned painting itself. In her practice, found objects serve as supports for paintings that emerge in close dialogue with the texture, form, and history of the material.
In Zatulovskaya’s artistic practice, the material therefore often determines the image. Rust, cracks, and flaking surfaces become integral components of the motif. Ancient fragments evoke ancient pictorial worlds, while wooden panels recall the form and surface of icon painting. One often gains the impression that the image already existed within the object and merely had to be revealed. This corresponds to her understanding of realism—not in an ideological but in a philosophical sense: the physical reality of the support must correspond to the truth of the image.
Opening: Friday, 16. January 2026, 7 pm
Exhibition dates: Saturday, 17. January until Saturday, 28. February 2026 – ATTENTION: extended until Friday, 20. March 2026
Image caption: Irina Zatulovskaya, Three Figures in Red Shirts, 2007, oil on iron, 67 x 100 x 12 cm © the artist, Courtesy Galerie Volker Diehl, Berlin.
Exhibition Irina Zatulovskaya – Galerie Volker Diehl | Zeitgenössische Kunst in Berlin | Contemporary Art | Exhibitions Berlin Galleries | ART at Berlin
