In Paris, at the L’Aleatoire Gallery, an exhibition of a young Tuvan artist Evgeniy Antufiev opened; he is a laureate of the Kandinsky Prize in contemporary art.
Project “Objets Protecteurs” (Objects of Protection) for which the young artist received one of the most prestigious art awards, will be shown in the capital of France until May 29.
Evgeniy Antufiev’s objects represent original protection a cocoon, which separates the artist from the “frightening world”, which are at the same time a magic spell, a mandala, sending signals into emptiness. “It seems that if everything is arranged correctly, something will happen, everything will crack. It is like signals, and everything will work out in life and generally, you just have to collect and arrange everything correctly.”
Evgeniy Antufiev was born in Tuva. It is a hermetically enclosed space, surrouded by mountains on all sides; iin the artist’s mythology it fulfills the role of the ideal home, where a person “sleeps in darkness like an embryo”. The objects, collcted in real Tuva, (floweres, bones, insects, fabrics), and parts of his own body and the bodies of relatives ( hair, blood, nails, grandmother’s gold teeth), are the umbilical cord, leading to inner Tuva, the ideal world without fears. In that way, location becomes an indelible part of one’s own body.
Another significant element in the artistic mythology is the ideal material- fabric. Fabric is a metaphor for the material of space since the most ancient times. Knot writing, ritual embroidery, ornaments through which the memory of the clan is transmitted, protection by the ancestors. Fabric is the basic material of the artist. Doll-objects are the essential heroes, they serve as guides and protectors on the way into the inner world.
The exhibition “Objects of Protection” is a story about the partially lost connection of people with the archaic mythos, and the possibility of their interaction today.
The exhibition is organized with support of the French photographer Patricia, a great friend of Tuva.
