Victor Davydov
Painting, video and performance art
1953, Zarechniy, Russia
1953, Zarechniy, Russia
Victor Davydov lives and works in a small town Zarechniy near Yekaterinburg. His artistic personality formed in the 1990's; turbulent times when not only was the social and artistic life of Yekaterinburg significantly changing, but also the world around was transforming. Art sharply reacted to social change and the new reality influenced consciousness; the artist took particular interest in this transformation.
Victor Davydov is one of the pioneers of performance and video art in the Urals. Together with the artists Anatoly Vyatkin and Sergei Pavlushin, he founded "The Nuclear Province" ensemble, whose members were the first to collaborate in performative practices and became one of the brightest, passionate and active representatives of contemporary art in the Urals.
"The Nuclear Province" organized a number of performances, including "Seven Days From the Life of Birds" (1993), "Iskunstvo" (1993), "For Ivan" (1994). In association with the "Yu-7" studio Davydov introduced and developed video art in the Urals. As the viewers were not yet ready to accept video art, the artists consciously used a simple and understandable visual language and narrative with satire.
In their works, Victor Davydov's and other artists of his circle vividly reflect various aspects of social life. Analyzing what was happening around, the artists often took a position of an ironic narrator. A visual or verbal pun lies at the heart of many Davydov's works of that time. The artist is sensitive to the ambiguous and ridiculous in the everyday and relationships between people. Socio-cultural context is of primary importance for his works.
Davydov and his fellow artists aspire to present their works in the same form and in the same domain as the subjects of their parody. Their art goes to streets in a form of artistic actions and performances; it speaks from TV screens, being broadcast in news-reels and special TV programs (the series of TV programs called "Gallery of Art-clips", created for by the "Yu-7" studio Sverdlovsk State TV and Radio Company). Concise and lucid images, local colours and rough generalizations help the artist create a feeling of naivety of popular pictures, which is very easily perceived.
Davydov and his fellow artists aspire to present their works in the same form and in the same domain as the subjects of their parody. Their art goes to streets in a form of artistic actions and performances; it speaks from TV screens, being broadcast in news-reels and special TV programs (the series of TV programs called "Gallery of Art-clips", created for by the "Yu-7" studio Sverdlovsk State TV and Radio Company). Concise and lucid images, local colours and rough generalizations help the artist create a feeling of naivety of popular pictures, which is very easily perceived.
Marina Sokolovskaya
art critic, art historian
Selected works
painting
videoartlips of "u-7 tv" studio
installations
performances and actions
Selected exhibitions and performance
Selected exhibitions
Collective exhibitions:
2017
2017
- Hearing Teest. Yeltsin Center Art Gallery, Yekaterinburg, Russia
- Taming the Void. Fifty Years of Contemporary Art in the Urals. Ural Branch of the National Center for Contemporary Art (Yekaterinburg, Russia)
- The New Malachite Box, Festival of Contemporary Art "Bazhov-Fest". Ural Branch of the National Center for Contemporary Art (Yekaterinburg, Russia)
- Spaces for Maneuver: Between Abstraction and Accumulation, the Main Project of the 3rd Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art (Yekaterinburg, Russia)
- Life as a Performance with a Break for Sleep. OkNo Gallery (Chelyabinsk, Russia)
- Hooray! Urals!. Ural Branch of the National Center for Contemporary Art (Yekaterinburg, Russia)
Performance and actions
2002
- Caviar Eaters' Night.
- Body Art in Urals style. 1999 In association with Oleg Yelovoy.
- Iskunstvo. 1993 As part of "The Nuclear Province" group (Anatoly Vyatkin and Sergei Pavlushin).
- Seven Days From the Life of Birds. 1993 As part of "The Nuclear Province" group (Anatoly Vyatkin and Sergei Pavlushin).
Foundation artists
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