Introduction to Silence

HD Video, 6:11. Edition 3 + 1 AP

2018

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Alexei Gordin is one of the artists represented by the Kogo gallery. His paintings, videos and performances tell a humorous story about the bottlenecks and absurdity of society and capitalism in life, mainly through narratives related to the art world.

Alexei Gordin created the video “Introduction to Silence” for his solo exhibition at the Kogo gallery in 2018. The video was filmed in Tallinn City Hall, where the artist gives a speech in front of a non-existent but applauding crowd in front of the monumental tapestry curtain “People’s Life” designed by Estonian artist Enn Põldroos in 1985. The video was made when the artist gave up of drawing speech bubbles in his paintings and started to add text similarly to silent movies. Same in the video, the artist doesn’t speak but the inner speech is subtitled. The artist philosophizes about art, being kind of ironic towards himself.

About the artist

Alexei Gordin (born in 1989) studied painting in Tallinn and Helsinki and currently lives and works in Tallinn.

Although he has a background as a painter, Gordin fluently uses different media and works with drawing, photography, video, and performance.

The main subject matter of his artistic practice is absurdly stereotypical thinking and behaviour patterns of people in contemporary mass society. Gordin’s works are almost always narrative in nature and often cover exciting or annoying situations. In the early years of his career, filthy slums, empty industrial landscapes, marginalised and stigmatised social groups, and vulgar jokes constituted the core atmosphere of Gordin’s work.

The harsh reality of the art world has now become one of his main topics and the artist has himself become the protagonist. Scenes scattered with black humour deconstruct the image of the professional art world as something elitist and glamorous.

Gordin has won several photography competitions and in 2017 he was awarded the Young Painters’ Prize in Vilnius.

More works by this artist