REGINA ends its — noisy, scandalous — season, fanned by the glory of the cohort of masters exhibited in it, awarded with the royal habit of leopards, roaming in it, and even flavored with the smell of domestic "game", sacrificed to the radicalism of its permanent curator Oleg Kulik.
Defining the image of, alas, many-sided Moscow galleries, you can confidently name REGINA Gallery as the one with the non-tiring genre of the most exciting and incredible. And now again an unusual, turned inside out step is proposed to be taken for the artist — a kind of test for the potency of audacity and plastic temperament. A wall is made for Aleksander Dzhikiya, successfully working with the space of the white graphic sheet for many years, more precisely — the entire perimeter of the gallery, eager to become a solid group portrait.
For REGINA —this is a step that has no hidden ambition to perpetuate itself —more precisely, deftly tamed by her Moscow artistic elite — iodine with a canopy of its own "arches". For Dzhikiya — the risk not lacking irony,for the "fresco" scope that awaits him obliges to monumental creation. And for everyone all together — that is like gambling, an action, гbordering with carefree painting of fences and joking portraying each other, removing all distances and diplomatic roughness. In one word, "Group portrait of the party", that is created in REGINA interior for two days with an appropriate scale, costs (if not material, then physical) and, as usual, an ambiguous result. Indeed, the artist worked, as they say, in the sweat of his face. "Why so much effort?" — i was thinking while looking at this somewhat KVN images, reminiscent of the enthusiasm of resourceful erudite men, enthusiastically performing memorized scenarios. Here, entertainment clearly prevailed over the meaning, and the "typical" Dzhikiya symbolistic-absurd retreated under the pressure of the inevitable in this genre of comic stylistics. "But, gentlemen, I want to wink at myself, — blow your cheeks down and throw your bombast! After all, you are not in the Louvre and not even in the Pompidou, although great things have long been allowed to the great, and not so harmless pranks". The satiety of our post-post-all existence completely allows a simple respite. Here are the artists gathered, and the "main" among them draws the others, actually embodying the principle of "art-life" that is preferred by his generation. After all, the act of creation is perceived by him as naturally - simply as a dream, talk or food, and also unavoidable, that translates each author's gesture into a worthy system of persuasiveness. Dzhikiya just does not blow his nose up with tention, never — neither on paper, nor on a wall — and does not move his eyebrows severely, calling for a sacred or scourging. He archly and wisely closes his eyes, peering at his absurdly-lofty heroes and committing: "And they run around each other, but I do not interfere…”. We’ll add — "I just draw".
But if someone is outraged by this vulgar unprofessionalism and is inclined to serious language and scientific interpretations, then, please... With the action "Group Portrait..." the artist proposes an unconventional gesture of a natural-alienable identification of himself in the context of self-similar. And he succeeds, if you can imagine. Despite all the fun, rally and amateur taste of the whole idea, Dzhikiya introduces its neologism, modifying the familiar monumental and pathetic genre of intimate-area art.