Untitled - krinzinger projekte - Galerie Krinzinger

DMITRY GUTOV14THREE COMPONENTSViktor Misiano, in: "Zeitwenden",Kunstmuseum Bonn, 1999, p. 126-127(excerpt)Dmitry Gutov’s creative activity consists ofthree components. Obviously they arepresent in his latest projects; therefore,they already existed in his earlier works ofthe 90ies. Those were hand-paintedcanvases depicting wallpaper fragments.They looked old fashioned, in the spirit ofthe 60ies, with the geometrical stylisticstypical also for the 20ies. Gutov’s earlierworks appropriated the stylistics of theRussian constructivism, linking it with thelanguage of Russian avantgarde. Trying togive a schematic and formula of Russianavantgarde aesthetics one can use VictorShklovsky’s words “Art as a Method”.Gutov is faithful to this principle in all hisworks: they are built upon total rooting ofa pithy part of a work in its material andformal structure. Thus, one of his workswas made as a giant installation: cloudswere floating high above the forest field,and the clouds consisted of badmintonshuttlecock (“Shuttlecock”). Whether theshuttle-cocks are floating above theground, earth and wooden planks layupon the surface: in his work titled “Overthe Black Mud” the floor of the Moscowgallery “Rigina” was covered by themuddy black earth and the audience wasmoving along the wooden light planksthrown over the mud. This effectivenessand effectness of the method lies both inthe idea of hand-made wallpapers, andvideo where the change of a shotcoincides with the change of a posture.However, Gutov’s work is not a Russianversion of American minimalism. He doesnot read Clement Greenberg but marxistaesthetologist Mikhail Lifshitz and philosophicalclassics - Marx and Hegel.Gutov’s art opposes to the avantgardeidea of linear construction of the artlanguage, his creative activity isconsecutively historic. […] However,Gutov’s historicism has nothing to do withpost-modern deconstruction. On the contrary,it is vital and natural experience ofthe past as something actual, and work ofa thought born by reading of aestheticsand philosophy by Hegel. […]However, Gutov’s art is not a “MuseeImaginaire”. He appropriated one phrasefrom his spiritual teacher, a marxist,Michail Lifshitz: “It’s time to say good buyto the petty intrigues of reflexion”. Thatphrase has become Gutov’s slogan notonly in his polemics with self-sufficientintellectualism of conceptualism (the mostalien trend in the Moscow art of previousdecade), but also in his polemics with theidea of art autonomy. Gutov is obsessedwith reality and he represents still actualfigure of a social artist with an activecritical point of view. […]right page (top):DMITRY GUTOV“Flag”, 1999digital print on textile180 x 300 cmright page (bottom):DMITRY GUTOV“Sascha from Urupinsk”, 1997/2002series of 4 b/w photographies40 x 60 cm, Ed. 10