EVGENY ANTUFIEV
Eternal Garden
April 8 > June 10, 2017
One can fly lightly from one object to the other, or just rest one’s gaze on the wall, like butterflies.
Evgeny Antufiev’s is an airy and emblematic exhibition reworking the project shown at Manifesta with relevant spatial variations and new works.
The protagonists are the same: the butterfly and it’s travel companion, the writer Nabokov.
In its symbolic value, the butterfly has always been associated in many cultures with the compenetration between the visible and the invisible, the meeting point between the finite and eternity, human and divine, the mark of change, metamorphosis and rebirth. The butterfly (in Greek Psiche= soul and butterfly) evokes a psychic transformation, a change, a passage through the different stages of life, the access to new experiences with an altered awareness. It is a memento mori of the ephemeral, but at the same time the sign of what is ever-lasting.
Nabokov, the “man/ butterfly”, takes up on himself the meaning of collectionism, where he identifies with what he collects, in the attempt to capture their essence. The methodical gesture of collecting and ranging becomes an emotional and tender attempt to assemble an identity back, melding it with a part of nature which does not accept death, fighting it through transformation.
The exhibition, appropriates the paradox and the metaphor as a fil rouge, not only in the choice of themes, but also for the use and treatment of materials.
In the works displayed in the exhibition shape becomes energy, challenging the matter, which is bent modified. What looks solid and long-lasting, like the bronze and brass casts, seems to melt into structural variations, while what is fragile – like the embroideries and the phantasmatic photographs – weaves and retains images on the wall to enforce the dream of a possible and vital eternity.
Text by Marina Dacci
One can fly lightly from one object to the other, or just rest one’s gaze on the wall, like butterflies.
Evgeny Antufiev’s is an airy and emblematic exhibition reworking the project shown at Manifesta with relevant spatial variations and new works.
The protagonists are the same: the butterfly and it’s travel companion, the writer Nabokov.
In its symbolic value, the butterfly has always been associated in many cultures with the compenetration between the visible and the invisible, the meeting point between the finite and eternity, human and divine, the mark of change, metamorphosis and rebirth. The butterfly (in Greek Psiche= soul and butterfly) evokes a psychic transformation, a change, a passage through the different stages of life, the access to new experiences with an altered awareness. It is a memento mori of the ephemeral, but at the same time the sign of what is ever-lasting.
Nabokov, the “man/ butterfly”, takes up on himself the meaning of collectionism, where he identifies with what he collects, in the attempt to capture their essence. The methodical gesture of collecting and ranging becomes an emotional and tender attempt to assemble an identity back, melding it with a part of nature which does not accept death, fighting it through transformation.
The exhibition, appropriates the paradox and the metaphor as a fil rouge, not only in the choice of themes, but also for the use and treatment of materials.
In the works displayed in the exhibition shape becomes energy, challenging the matter, which is bent modified. What looks solid and long-lasting, like the bronze and brass casts, seems to melt into structural variations, while what is fragile – like the embroideries and the phantasmatic photographs – weaves and retains images on the wall to enforce the dream of a possible and vital eternity. (Marina Dacci)
Editorial notes
The exhibition is a part of Evgeny Antufiev’s project for the European biennial Manifesta 11 devoted to the passion of Vladimir Nabokov for butterflies. While preparing for the project Antufiev stayed in the hotel room that became the house of Nabokov for many years. Part of the show presents photographs of Nabokov’s room that Antufiev took, which served as a starting point for the creation of some bronze sculptures.
Vladimir Nabokov caught his first butterfly in 1906: it has become a key event of his whole life: «I have often dreamed of a long and exciting career as an obscure curator of lepidopterology at a famous museum.». From 1941 to 1948 he worked at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard, where he reorganized the collection of butterflies and published several scientific articles.
Nabokov chose Switzerland as his permanent residence: when people asked why he lived there, he replied that the main reason is the butterflies. From 1961 until his death (1977), Nabokov lived, in the Montreux Palace Hotel (Montreux) in solitude with his wife; he worked a lot in this hotel room or in the terrace that became his own «magic mountain». The writer’s last words before dying were «a certain butterfly was already on the wing».
Evgeny Antufiev was born in Tuva, Russia in 1986. He lives and works in Moscow. After the studies at the Institute
of Contemporary Art (ICA), in 2009 he won the Kandinsky Prize within the category “The Young Artist. Project of the Year.” His most recent important project, Eternal Garden, has been shown at Manifesta 11. in 2017 he participated at Garage Triennial of Russian Contemporary Art. In 2016 he realized a performance as part of Cabaret Kultura With V-A-C Live at Whitechapel Gallery in London. His work has been presented at la z2o Sara Zanin Gallery (Rome), MMOMA(Moscow) and at the Regina Gallery in Moscow (September-November 2015). His work was also featured at Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow (2014), at Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia (2013) and he participated in prestigious venues group exhibitions such as the Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2012) and the New Museum, New York (2011).
