Opening: 29 October 2009, 7 pm

Olga Chernysheva (b. 1962 in Moscow) studied at the Moscow Cinema Academy and the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam and lives and works in Moscow. Her work provides a view into the present conditions of Russian society hovering between the Communist legacy and current political developments. Chernysheva’s focus is not on major historical events, but on the rituals of everyday – small gestures, transitory moments, blind spots in the urban space, which she makes visible.

The exhibition Inner Dialog compiles for the first time photographic and video works from the last six years, their impact transported by a basic tenor that is contemplative and enigmatic. They are set in interior spaces – in a dual sense, they deal with topographical and mental interior spaces. The photo series Guards (2009) On Duty (2007) and Moscow Area (2008) show people and their sameness of actions silent and freeze-framed. On the one hand we have the professional guard, omnipresent in Russia, on the other the Moscow underground official on duty – watchful, but introspective, present, but overlooked, “simultaneously on and off”, as the artist formulates it. The setting of her latest work Cactus Seller (2009) is the Moscow Zoo Museum, which is transformed into a magical place through the enigmatic, almost alchemistic presence of a cactus seller.
Chernysheva’s photo and video works – The Train (2003), Russian Museum (2003-05), Anonymous 1/2 (2004), Untitled. Dedicated to Sengai (2008) – seem far removed from being purely documentary snapshots; they capture reality in a state of transcendence, show the universal and connecting aspects in individuals and access inner worlds, which can only be entered through the power of the poetic imagination and introspection.

A catalogue is being published to accompany the exhibition.
A partnership project of Bank Austria Kunstforum, Bank Austria UniCredit Group and Kulturkontakt Austria

Curators:
Heike Eipeldauer (Bank Austria Kunstforum)
Annemarie Türk (Kulturkontakt Austria)

Link to Olga Chernysheva: www.olgachernysheva.ru