SEPTEMBER, 3 – OCTOBER, 1 / SMALL EXHIBITION HAL

Andrey Dmitrenko's latest exhibition takes its name from lyric poetry. In the Russian version of the title, the use of the informal personal pronoun “you” connotes a certain proximity, and even intimacy to the subject, but the addressee itself remains unknown.

“You” could be the viewer, who navigates the exhibition, slipping into contemplation and losing themselves for a moment, only to be brought back by the sound of their own footsteps.

“You” could be the work, which always brings its own intonations and “noise” into the space around it.

The artist prefers to work in mixed media, contrasting the textures and characteristics of various materials, from metal, to textiles, to paper. And these contrasts always have a moment of chance about them: it is never exactly clear where the artist’s hand has intervened, and what are just the natural properties of the material. In any case, with his interventions the artist emphasizes these properties, making them resonate, until that they literally become “noise.” The viewer is then called upon to continue the artist’s process through their contemplation of the work.

The transitions from one material to another can also be seen as a means to shift from seeing to listening. Sound is one of the main components in Dmitrenko’s works. The viewer might see the fragments of striped fabrics used in some of the artist’s canvases and connect them to his or her own experiences and memories of bedsheets. In this sense, the artist “activates” a kind of sleep mode, like the curious phenomenon when one is dreaming, and auditory sensations trigger images.

The dimensions of the works are often not very large. They do not presume to completely take up the space. Their status is never clear: on the one hand, they are, of course, images, but on the other, they are objects with an unknown origin and an undefined function. They do not impose themselves on the viewer, who must still discover them, recognizing them as works of art and locating them within “this little landscape.” If we think about the function, then Dmitrenko’s works are like tuning forks – instruments for measuring the intensity of sound in an enclosed space.

With their horizon lines and two or three planes, the suite of works from the “Storm” series can be considered as landscapes – albeit, very unstable and provisional landscapes. All the fits and fury of their internal storms seem either to have already passed, or, conversely, to constitute the very substance of the storm, not in the visual sense, but in terms of the intensity of the experiences.

If we are to speak of tradition, then the works of Andrey Dmitrenko pick up on the history of music within minimalism – the experiences of organizing sounds of different origins, as well as integrating these sounds into a musical fabric.

Kirill Svetlyakov