Triangle Gallery is pleased to announce a new solo exhibition by Moscow-based artist Evgheny Kukoverov ( born in 1984). It is his second exhibition with the Gallery.

Some historian in a glossy pop-science magazine could have declared that the digital photo filters have ultimately destroyed the remains of the modernistic bravado in the arts. One can stylize the existing image to match anything – the stroke of a famous artist or a particular art trend. And if there is no name for the desired style, then it's quite easy to collect favorite images for references – there are already software programs that do this.

The steps anticipating this rapid technological and cultural revolution were all of these animal faces, stars, confetti, party hats, which we layered on top of our selfies; the mirrored collages, spirally twirled images, and other distortion effects. A wide range of digital make-up. It's because we use different apps allowing us to edit our photos on a daily basis, that the changes went unnoticed, they seemed to be taken for granted.

In reality, the conventional stars and hearts allow us to re-edit the image completely. Imagine: you are on a train. The natural landscapes and cities flying by are not noticed, you can only view the compositions collected from objects in a strict, particular way, which are framed by a window with a glass filter and natural distortion, inevitable dirt, crawling insects and light glares. These overlays can justify everything – the endless kilometers of typical slurbs and fields and forests which could make us, unaccustomed city-dwellers, feel sick.

In the same way, Evgeny Kukoverov is drawing fragments of the mess in his studio or often seen things or his friends. Just for fun. Because he likes it. In the most simple, clumsy even, manner which was reproached by an acquainted professional artist: it cannot be done this way, it's not artistic, where is the knowledge of art history, where is the understanding of the aspects of the art medium! But he is not alone in this guilty pleasure. What can we do – the hand automatically reaches to press 'filter'. The artist participating in the quite literal interpretation of the metaphors in Elikuka group and drawing very naive scenes naturally chooses the most simple ones, the most obvious, almost screaming examples of these patches: the spots, stars, moving glares. It's no problem for Kukoverov to sprinkle them all over the painting.

And here one could ask, what does this have to do with Florian? In the bigger picture, he is also a filter. He not only appears as a glare on one of the paintings, he is connecting all of the images into one story. But if you don't know him, it's no problem. It's even more interesting.

Sergey Guskov