IN THE ROOM
Alexey Yakovlev and Anton Yakovlev
Alexey Yakovlev and Anton Yakovlev
October 19 – December 3 2021
Triangle Gallery is pleased to present "In the room", the first two person exhibition by brothers Alexey and Anton Yakovlev (both b. 1982, live and work in Kaliningrad). Opening reception October 19th at 19:00. Until December 3rd 2021.
We`ve seen many deaths of painting. Or rather, attempts to bury it. Few of them coincided with our time - performance, video, non-spectacular art should have done away with canvas and oil. In the 2010s digital and net art were about to finish the job. But painting lives on, with its persistence resembling a large tree. Centuries pass, civilizations collapse, the tree remains in its place, it breathes and grows with annual rings. In the same way, painting grows with meanings through epochs.
The exhibition of brothers Alexei and Anton Yakovlev from Kaliningrad is a fresh example of such "will to live" of painting. Their work resembles an album with photographs or a diary - somewhere very personal and heartfelt (portraits "Father" and "Brother" by Alexei Yakovlev, "Mother of my child" by Anton Yakovlev), somewhere light and vivid, like a memory insert ("Flowers in a lemonade bottle" by Anton Yakovlev). We meet with the eyes of the living and a little alien eyes of heroes from very special Russia - Kaliningrad – an enclave between Lithuania and Poland. Those paintings are lyrical, funny and very serious, naive at first glance, but in fact, masterful and deeply rooted in the artistic tradition of the XX - XXI century.
The closest analogy to the works of the Yakovlevs is the famous and very popular right now American artist Alice Neel (Alice Neel, 1900 - 1984). The peer of the century, who died almost forty years ago, is experiencing posthumous glory in the 2020s. One of the reasons is that Nile's art is a perfect example of this organic accumulation of meaning, which painting succeeds better than any other medium. Neil lived through modernism with all its breakthroughs and transformations, and entered the postmodern era in full force, without losing her own recognizable face. The artist's later and most famous works are painting after modernist art, painting after photography and the branded spectacularity of pop art. It is difficult to imagine another medium that could absorb and adopt such distant categories - author's involvement and thematic eclecticism, lyricism and poster-like showiness.
The works of Anton and Alexey Yakovlev are another new chapter in the endless history. Painting after Alice Neal ("after" both as "succeeding" and "based on"), and more importantly, after the Internet and social network. Painting in the Media Era. Portrait-like posts are especially popular and get the most likes, as well as personal stories. Publications without a human figure are almost doomed. Here the genre of the portrait gets into the pulse of the moment and, at the same time, continues the thousand-year tradition. As well as still life renews its meanings: a moment of beauty snatched from everyday life, balance of composition, symbolism of things. And something more.
In a world overflowing with images, painting turns out to be more than just another picture. This is a super-picture, highlighted by the artist's interested gaze, the investment of skill and time and the energy of the genre itself, accumulated over the centuries.
Alexander Merekin
We`ve seen many deaths of painting. Or rather, attempts to bury it. Few of them coincided with our time - performance, video, non-spectacular art should have done away with canvas and oil. In the 2010s digital and net art were about to finish the job. But painting lives on, with its persistence resembling a large tree. Centuries pass, civilizations collapse, the tree remains in its place, it breathes and grows with annual rings. In the same way, painting grows with meanings through epochs.
The exhibition of brothers Alexei and Anton Yakovlev from Kaliningrad is a fresh example of such "will to live" of painting. Their work resembles an album with photographs or a diary - somewhere very personal and heartfelt (portraits "Father" and "Brother" by Alexei Yakovlev, "Mother of my child" by Anton Yakovlev), somewhere light and vivid, like a memory insert ("Flowers in a lemonade bottle" by Anton Yakovlev). We meet with the eyes of the living and a little alien eyes of heroes from very special Russia - Kaliningrad – an enclave between Lithuania and Poland. Those paintings are lyrical, funny and very serious, naive at first glance, but in fact, masterful and deeply rooted in the artistic tradition of the XX - XXI century.
The closest analogy to the works of the Yakovlevs is the famous and very popular right now American artist Alice Neel (Alice Neel, 1900 - 1984). The peer of the century, who died almost forty years ago, is experiencing posthumous glory in the 2020s. One of the reasons is that Nile's art is a perfect example of this organic accumulation of meaning, which painting succeeds better than any other medium. Neil lived through modernism with all its breakthroughs and transformations, and entered the postmodern era in full force, without losing her own recognizable face. The artist's later and most famous works are painting after modernist art, painting after photography and the branded spectacularity of pop art. It is difficult to imagine another medium that could absorb and adopt such distant categories - author's involvement and thematic eclecticism, lyricism and poster-like showiness.
The works of Anton and Alexey Yakovlev are another new chapter in the endless history. Painting after Alice Neal ("after" both as "succeeding" and "based on"), and more importantly, after the Internet and social network. Painting in the Media Era. Portrait-like posts are especially popular and get the most likes, as well as personal stories. Publications without a human figure are almost doomed. Here the genre of the portrait gets into the pulse of the moment and, at the same time, continues the thousand-year tradition. As well as still life renews its meanings: a moment of beauty snatched from everyday life, balance of composition, symbolism of things. And something more.
In a world overflowing with images, painting turns out to be more than just another picture. This is a super-picture, highlighted by the artist's interested gaze, the investment of skill and time and the energy of the genre itself, accumulated over the centuries.
Alexander Merekin