Maria Agureeva
The dust of Perl will settle down on soft skin covering all the cracks
Atrium Gallery
September 10- October 26, 2018
Exhibition reception Tuesday, October 16, 6-8 pm
*This event has been postponed from September 29 to October 16.

Moscow-based visiting artist Maria Agureeva presents an exhibition of new works organized around her multi-channel film installation, The Dust (2018), a work that intentionally erases border lines between documentary and performance, and synthesizes the key methods the artist uses in her larger body of work. The nearly hour-long film depicts Agureeva portraying either a worker or an artist in the workshop, who demonstrates a scrupulous process of making a piece of art and perfecting it. First, she makes a gypsum mould of her own knee, then she casts it in pink plastic, and then she starts its fervent and obsessive grinding with a special device. The ritualized dramaturgy is accompanied by a minimalistic drumming soundtrack.

The colored dust that remains after the sculpture grinds away is pure matter that the audience sees not only on the screen, virtually, but also physically on shelves placed in the gallery. This dust refers to the cycle of life, reminding viewers that “all come from dust, and to dust all return.” Starting from her own state of embodiment, the artist asks us to comprehend the impersonal universal matter that makes up us all, that isn’t bound by any mundane features, but on the contrary, is free and perennially regenerating. A series of sculptures will accompany the film, providing contrast to the dematerialized form.

ABOUT THE ARTIST