2013 | Happening
Exhibition: 33 Possible Impossible Paintings
Venue: Lev Khabarov Gallery / New Exhibition Centre, Yekaterinburg, Russia
Date: 24 September 2013
Group: Kazimir Malevich’s Malers’ Brigade
“Pirozhki look like a tongue. If a grandmother gives you a pirozhok, perhaps she is trying to tell you something.”
The Happening
At the opening of 33 Possible Impossible Paintings, the Kazimir Malevich’s Malers’ Brigade turned a familiar Russian pastry into a temporary language.
A plate of pirozhki was placed beside a board displaying photographs of the Brigade members with pirozhki in their mouths. Visitors were invited to take one — with one condition: they had to be photographed with it in their mouth.
Each photograph was then printed and added to the board.
As more people joined, the board gradually filled with faces, gestures and pirozhki. What began as a simple visual resemblance — a pirozhok as a tongue — became a growing collection of people “speaking” through the same image.
The work was not a fixed object. It developed through participation, photography and accumulation.
The phrase Russian Language became something physical and temporary: a language made from food, faces, photographs and the people who entered the situation.
The Exhibition
33 Possible Impossible Paintings brought together 33 artists, each presenting an unusual work that could be understood as possible or impossible, familiar or unexpected.
The Brigade’s happening took place during the opening on 24 September 2013.
Documentation
The photographic record forms an important part of the project. It follows the action from the first photographs of the Brigade through the growing number of participating visitors and the accumulation of their printed images on the board.