< Projects < Supported projects < Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova, FRAMES, 2013

Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova

FRAMES

(on the freedom that we can afford, or we can restrict in expressing through images)

The video installation FRAMES includes 6 projections dedicated to various visual and social limitations. In three of her videos: The Inexorable Nature of the Renaissance, The Irresistible Charm of Impressionism and The Irrefutable Argument of Conceptualism (created in 2012–2013), the artist comments upon trends in visual art, namely Renaissance, Impressionism and Conceptualism, posing unambiguous questions about the potential liberties and limitations of each one of them. She adds to them the 2005 work Talk, which is actually a spontaneously recorded conversation between artists about some of the most prominent names in the history of painting.


A counterpoint to the above is the video Burden, where the artist tells a personal story from her childhood – the time when aesthetical preferences are shaped together with a system of views pertaining to one’s overall perception of the world.


In Elusive Images (2012), within the framework of five minutes and 45 seconds, Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova offers us her vision of the surrounding world, evidently shaped by all opportunities and limitations considered until that moment. Visual layering and the acquired social experience contribute to a multifaceted and well-rounded view. Hence the diverse “readings“ of the world, which resemble image layering in a video.


The Project comprises 6 videos:

BURDEN
(2013, 6’, mini DV on DVD, color, sound)

In 1971, a ten-year-old girl on a school trip to Moscow, brought home a gift - a bronze statuette of Lenin (the young Vladimir Ilyich, with his jacket slung over the shoulder, looking earnestly at the bright future).
I remember the big shop, the long queue and the terribly heavy package. The desire to make my folks happy beat the weight, so I lugged home the bronze. How they accepted it – I don’t remember.
Lenin took his seat next to the door – to prop it in case of draught.
He is still sitting there.

TALK
An inadvertently recorded conversation between artists
(2005, 2’, mini DV on DVD, color, sound)


THE INEXORABLE NATURE OF THE RENAISSANCE
Renaissance – because before it was just the canon
(2012, 4’32’’, mini DV on DVD, color, sound)


THE IRRESISTIBLE CHARM OF IMPRESSIONISM
Impressionism – because of the secret longings of the 1980s (among artistic circles in Sofia) for „the decadent bourgeois culture”
(2013, 4’25’’, mini DV on DVD, color, sound)


THE IRREFUTABLE ARGUMENT OF CONCEPTUALISM
Conceptualism – because it is still alive
(2013, 0’48’’, mini DV on DVD, color, sound)


ELUSIVE IMAGES
(2012, 5’45’’, mini DV on DVD, color, sound)