Irina Nakhova
12 SELECTED INSTALLATIONS 1994–2004
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STAY WITH ME
2002
Direct Volley 1, 245 x 460 cm; Direct Volley 2,
Indirect Volley 1 and 2, each 183 x 366 cm, all thermal inkjet
print on graphic silk; printing: Applied Image Inc.;
box: parachute silk, inflatable, wood, styrene-laminated foam,
electronics, 230 x 122 x 122 cm,
sound (special thanks to Nina Dementieva)
For the last decade Irina Nakhova has lived in the West, and has personally experienced all the metaphysics of change. The «Western Shine» is literally embodied in her new installation, with circles of sequins collaged into the drawings and enormously enlarged, turning into somewhat dim hazy circles, their primary shining totally lost. That’s how it is: anything that «shines» does so from afar only; close up, it turns into a haze. So what are the artists – who were destined to be involved in the «big ideology», a «détente» in our case – supposed to do when the process is finished?Where to find the new «faraway shining»? Does being «close-to» cause unbearable pressure? It does in Nakhova’s installation, by presenting the perfect metaphor for the pressure of a close-up view. The walls of the womb-room strain and squeeze the unfortunate viewer, who can be freed from this embrace only by going outside to view the place from a distance, where it takes on an attractive hallucinogenic pinky-greenish look. Here is the answer to the question: one may simply «walk out» to somewhere beyond – especially since we know that these hazy black circular targets on the big cloth are merely small shining sequins. As we are all aware, knowledge is power. Ideological artists could not limit themselves to considerations of fashion or modern style only. Conceptual sectarianism now – with all its special style, irony and aesthetic preferences opposing the officious Western-Russian-international mainstream – is precisely this «smart shine» found in Nakhova’s installation, marking the «shining little faraway» (sectarianism) and the official stagnant «big sultriness» here and now.
Andrei Monastyrski (shortened version of «Shining From Afar Only»; first published in: «Stay With Me», brochure XL Gallery, Moscow 2002)