Printmaking is the art form in which the result is the hardest to predict, because the printing press is a full-fledged co-author, and the artist “has no goal, only a path”. Alexandra Gart is a St. Petersburg artist who masters this medium and creates mystical black and white compositions.
Alexandra very rarely and subtly introduces color into her work, and the images themselves are never explained, leaving the images to the interpretation of the viewer. “If I had a clear idea, I wouldn’t express it through art: I’m not interested in reducing art to an applied role,” she says, and indeed she almost always leaves her works untitled, in no way narrowing the scope of the viewer’s imagination. Dried tree trunks, always crownless birches, fence and industrial zones are frequent images of her works, but they do not just imitate reality and demonstrate the “Russian code”: with Alexandra they become full-fledged existential images.
Garth doesn’t compromise with the viewer, and her work must be viewed either carefully or not at all. When she co-founded the exhibition space STYD* (a small space of 20 m²), everything in it worked on her terms: no openings with champagne and a photo zone; not everyone is allowed in, and if they are allowed in, each viewer is left to himself inside the exhibition space – no freebar hunter will get in. “You are not welcome to the club” is the telling title of one of the projects from that period.
Whether it is laconic images taken from reality or blurred figures, total installations or video works – Alexandra Gart always manages to immerse the viewer in her world of subtle observation. The artist confesses that consuming any content is an exhausting activity for her; it is a space of eternal search and analysis, which she never stops. Perhaps this is the secret of the magnetism of her works, which you want to stare at for hours.
*“STYD” is translated “shame” into russian.
Text: Azens Anna
