Hidden

The exhibition "Hidden" was opened in the Third place. The installation of Katya Isaeva is presented here.

The title of the exhibition refers to the 2005 film by Austrian director Michael Haneke Caché or Hidden. "Despite the freedom of interpretation, the film sets a well-defined range of topics that are very close to our social reality. Relationships with the Other and fear of the Other, moral choice or unwillingness to make it, honesty with yourself and the ability to admit one's own mistakes. Despite the importance and relevance of the film, the project involves not quoting, but dialogue. Another important participant in the dialogue will be the space of the Third Place itself. The number of historical layers that coexist in parallel in it, on the one hand, create an additional effect of cinematography, and on the other hand, offer the ambiguity and freedom of choice that are perfectly combined with the idea of the project. I want to believe that the exhibition will allow regular viewers to take a different look at the mansion and its history."

Katya Isaeva's installation is the office of Cristobal Junta, a taxidermist, the hero of the novel by the Strugatsky brothers "Monday Begins on Saturday". This work is incredibly consonant with our time in its tonality, but kinder and more harmless.

Anna Zhurba, curator of the project, about the Katya Isaeva’s work:

The artist creates, imagines (since according to the plot of the story itself, no one has ever been there) the office of Cristobal Josevich Junta, the head of the Department of the Meaning of Life in NIIChaVo (Scientific Research Institute of Sorcery and Wizardry (abbreviated NIIChaVo in Russian sounds very close to "Ничего" the word for "nothing»), a man with the richest biography and an excellent taxidermist. In the research institute it was well known that the Junta casually changed life attitudes. He was both an inquisitor and a heretic, fought with the fifth column in Spain, and there were also rumors that in the corner of his office there was a beautifully executed stuffed animal of his friend Standartenführer SS. In the reality around us, the imaginary department of the Meaning of Life is in a deeper and deeper crisis, so the poster that allegedly hung in one of the laboratories of the Junta sounds so piercing, with the words "do we need us?" According to the Strugatsky brothers, the Junta did not advance very successfully in his research.

Photo: Press Service of the Third Place