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ARTHUR GOLYAKOV

1 2 3, 2024

1 2 3, a Solo Show at Devyatnadtsat', Moscow, Russia
26.5 — 26.6.2024
Photo by Denis Lapshin

A new series of works by Arthur Golyakov includes recognizable images of actresses Natalie Portman and Keira Knightley, as well as an ommage to the legendary Swiss Helvetica typeface. Next to the portraits of actresses there are abstract compositions and the figure of a raven.
The artist pays great attention to working with popular images of mass culture, incorporating them into his pictorial toolkit, which, in turn, transmits continuity with the artistic representations of the XXth century.
In the use of portraits of famous actresses, one can trace the artist's techniques' connection to Pop Art. However, unlike Warhol's icons, Golyakov leaves his heroines in their cinematic habitat depicting shots from familiar movies.
The title of the exhibition seems to suggest a certain order, a sequence, perhaps a cyclical repetition. The question is what exactly is included in the mathematical series: people, animals, media images or modernist abstract painting. Perhaps it is all of these together.
By refusing to make an explicit statement, Golyakov offers us the logic of an abstracted construction not so much of narratives, but of interpenetrating, complementary, and mutually sustaining images as such. This project can be read both diagonally and in depth.

— Natalya Serkova, 2024