On March 3, a—s—t—r—a gallery opens an exhibition by new gallery resident Ivan V.
Nenashev. "The Mind of Flowers" will be the artist's first solo project, presented in Moscow.
About the Project
The project "The Mind of Flowers" was created by artist Ivan V. Nenashev based on his study of
Maurice Maeterlinck's philosophical essay "The Mind of Flowers," the author of the well-known fairy tale play "The Blue Bird," in which children embark on a journey in search of a blue bird (a symbol of happiness). For the most part, the essay "The Mind of Flowers" is a more detailed analysis by the author of the questions: "What is happiness in the world?", "What does beauty look like?",
"What is the meaning of life?" Observing flowers, their mechanisms that allow us to follow them through the centuries, he emphasizes what we should learn fr om them, what we have learned and are already beginning to forget...
The works on display engage the viewer in reflection on the role and meaning of beauty: do we see beauty correctly? Or are we prisoners of Plato's myth of the cave?
"A cage...
Dark and damp.
Round and cramped.
The tail crawls,
the skin cracks,
I grow and crawl fr om the bottom up;
Light.
I am green and full of strength,
I rise ever higher, and I am delighted by:
the winds that sway,
and the heat of the sun;
Leaf by leaf I grow.
I am happy and striving for the light,
through rain and in clear weather,
fr om night to day – I grow;
And I grow my head...
A spark falls through the crack,
My head has opened, a heady swarm of white thoughts inside me.
It arose suddenly,
I burn...
Or I could have remained just a poppy or a snowdrop or a squill or a violet or a thistle
or a hyacinth or a peony or an iris, just a flower...
to light life with my fire...
to wisely pamper bees and birds and butterflies,
to recreate the season fr om century to century,
to know my meaning and purpose.
Endlessly.
they cut off the stem, after seven days - back into the cage...
again...
dark and damp,
round and cramped...
And man - to observe."
About the artist
"My artistic practice is a visual exploration of Friedrich Nietzsche's key philosophical
intuitions, an attempt to translate the language of his aphorisms and concepts into the language
of color, form, and texture. I perceive the canvas not as an illustration to philosophical
tracts, but as an arena wh ere the same fundamental dramas unfold.
The central image for me is not the figure of the superman as some ideal, but the
process of "overcoming" (Überwindung) itself. I am interested in that tense
interval wh ere man shatters the tablets of previous morals—what Nietzsche called
"slave morality," but new values ​​are still painfully born. This is a state
of dangerous freedom, a dizzying openness to the absurd, and the need to create
one's own meaning in a world devoid of a divine plan. My abstract landscapes
and decentered compositions are a cartography of precisely this inner experience.
Through painting, I attempt to ask a question relevant both to modern man
and to art: how can we find support in a world wh ere God is dead? How, having recognized chaos and suffering as an integral part of existence, can we avoid falling into nihilism, but rather say "yes" to life—affirm it in all its ambivalent fullness? My works do not provide answers, but capture the affective intensity of this questioning. They are a visual experiment
in the embodiment of Nietzsche's "philosophy of the hammer," wh ere art becomes the instrument that tests the strength of our habitual notions of goodness and evil, order and chaos, humanity and what may lie beyond it."
Ivan V. Nenashev was born in the Samara region in 1991. He received his secondary vocational and higher education in technical engineering and analytics in the oil and gas industry. From an early age, he developed a practical interest in visual arts: graphics, sculpture, painting, analog photography, graphic and product design. SOLO EXHIBITIONS AND PROJECTS:
•
2026 — "The Mind of Flowers" by a—s—t—r—a gallery, Moscow
•
2025 — "Polichinelle" by PopUp Gallery, St. Petersburg
•
2024 — "Rooms 303" by PopUp Gallery (curated by Sofia Abroskina), Wynwood Hotel,
St. Petersburg
•
2023 — "Angle of View. Cain and Abel, curated by Sofia Abroskina, Shum2008 by Balaev
and Dianova, St. Petersburg
•
2022 — Rooms by Nikolay Ten, St. Petersburg
GROUP PROJECTS:
•
2025 — Portrait of a Collector, a-s-t-r-a gallery, Moscow
•
2024 — Rooms of White Stone by PopUp Gallery 2024, St. Petersburg
•
2023 — Quiet Move by PopUp Gallery 2023, a-s-t-r-a gallery, Moscow
•
2022 — Dom exhibition 2022, St. Petersburg
•
2021 — Posmotrim exhibition 2021, St. Petersburg
FAIRS:
•
2025 — 1703, PopUp Gallery, St. Petersburg
•
2024 — "PAF" 2024, St. Petersburg
STATEMENT. Archaeology of the Contemporary is an open-ended project to document Russian artistic and intellectual thought after February 2022, emerging among artists, art theorists, and philosophers as they reflect on contemporary events, search for Russian identity,
changes in cultural codes, and ask questions about the future, past, and present.
The project is being implemented through a series of exhibitions in two separate gallery display cases: they will feature a work selected from a permanent open call and the text of the artist's manifesto.
At the end of the year, a catalog is planned, in which each pair (work and manifesto), selected by the project's curators, will be further analyzed by invited art theorists and philosophers. "Today, it's clear that Russian culture is developing something new. Perhaps something unique. Everyone involved is reading this. It doesn't happen overnight. It takes time. We are archiving it," explains Alina Kryukova. As part of the "Mind of Flowers" project, a manifesto by multidisciplinary
artist and new resident of the a-s-t-r-a gallery, Sasha Frolova, will be presented.
The full text can be found at: https://a-s-t-r-a.ru/blogs/statement
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About the gallery
a-s-t-r-a is a gallery project created by Alina Kryukova, entrepreneur and researcher, in
2018 to promote art among a new wave of collectors.
a-s-t-r-a is a combination of exhibition and interdisciplinary educational projects,
aimed at attracting new participants to the art market and restoring patronage as a norm.
Conceived as an entry point for aspiring collectors, a—s—t—r—a operated throughout 2018 as an
online platform for acquiring affordable professional art, and at the end of 2019, it
represented Russian artists at the international SCOPE fair as part of ART BASEL, MIAMI. In
March 2020, it became the first Russian gallery to participate in the Spring/Break ArtShow in New York, as part of The Armory Show, and in August 2020, it was the only Russian gallery to participate in
Enter Art Fair in Copenhagen, Denmark. Since 2020, it has annually participated in the Russian fairs Cosmoscow, blazar,
1703, |catalog| and is an active player in the Russian contemporary art market. a-s-t-r-a works with established and internationally established artists, authors who have received institutional recognition and are in mid-career, and also introduces new names to the market through the biannual exhibition project a-s-t-r-a OPEN.
The gallery is located on the premises of the Winzavod Center for Contemporary Art.
It is a member of the Association of Galleries of Russia.
Alina Kryukova is an entrepreneur, art collector, founder of a-s-t-r-a gallery, co-founder of the contemporary art fair |catalog|; lecturer at Skolkovo and Universal University; member of the Board of the Association of Galleries of Russia, and member of the Expert Council of the Agency for Creative Industries.
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Additional information:
Alexandra Shevtsova
Director of a-s-t-r-a gallery
hello@a-s-t-r-a.ru
8 925 579 12 08