Translated material
Alien hippies
The exhibition “UFO Souvenirs. Oslokino UFO"
Curator Andrey Bartenev and artists from Norway, Great Britain, the USA and Russia present the exhibition project “UFO Souvenirs. Oslokino UFO" within the framework of the I Moscow International Biennale of Young Art "Stop! Who's coming?" The project is dedicated to starships and astronauts, planets and galaxies, rockets, spacesuits and telescopes, aliens and UFOs. “UFO souvenirs. Oslokino UFO" is a portal to distant planets, a platform for communication with unearthly beings, and even a spaceship airfield.Visitors are greeted by the painting “Portraits of Aliens” by Russian artist Eduard Katikhin. The author presents aliens not as two-legged green men from popular films, but as amusing, even funny creatures with many limbs, different sizes and shapes. The color painting is reminiscent of grandma's carpet. Similar ones hung on the walls next to the beds in almost all Soviet families.
Five rooms are dedicated to entertaining ufology. One of them is a dark square room, in the center of which there is a structure of six sofas in the form of an alien sign. A green man looks from the wall of the room, his huge eyes sparkling, raising his finger to his lips (a parody of the famous Soviet poster “Don’t Talk”). He warns visitors of surprise and calls for silence. There really is something to listen to. The room is filled with metallic sounds, gurgling sounds, cicadas and mysterious whispers. Voices of unearthly origin are heard from all parts of the hall thanks to 12 speakers located along all its walls.
In addition to acoustic surprises, residents of the third planet from the sun can find many other interesting things at the exhibition. For example, the skeleton of an aircraft created from wires and plugs. The skeleton is surrounded by pictures depicting the stay of humanoids on earth. Like many of the exhibits, the pictures parody glamor. The last or first (depending on where you start) picture proves that except for skin color, humanoids are no different from us: here is a plump lady with a fashionable hairstyle, wearing an evening dress, her arms are tattooed, her lips are made up, and behind her is her own car-plate.
A separate attraction is videos that can be watched on comfortable white sofas. The monitors either show slides-drawings of an unearthly culture, or small films, such as “1st Contact Made.” The video tells about the first contact between a person and an alien, there are no tricks here: something unlike a person meets people. The videos are accompanied by audio tracks. You can’t hear anything new; this sound is familiar from video games: these are, as a rule, high-pitched, drawn-out sounds. The last monitor remained a mystery to me. I was surprised to find a video clip from the Harry Potter movie on it. Of course, we can agree that the boy is strange, he doesn’t behave exactly like everyone else, but that he is an alien, I didn’t know about that. Maybe the reason for my misunderstanding was faulty headphones.
The central exhibit on the second floor is “Lubolet” by Sasha Frolova. “Lubolet” is created from turquoise latex and looks like kissing Loch Ness monsters, very slippery, and also to the touch. On the wall hang alien skins, all made of the same latex, and under them you can take the Eurolatex advertising calendar.
An installation of an alien room is mounted on the second floor. It is made in bright colors with many patterns that change color. Photos of aliens look impressive next to the room. Unearthly fashion - bright conceptual suits with a predominance of red. All models pose competently for the photographer, not at all embarrassed by the camera. A bright room and equally bright costumes convince us that the aliens are hippies. If you hang a portrait of Marley here, it will fit in.
The key word in the title of the exhibition is “souvenirs”. Souvenir is translated from French as “to remember.” Perhaps the authors want us not to forget that we are not alone in the Universe, and to prepare for first contact. After Andrei Bartenev’s exhibition, you are convinced that intergalactic communication can only be informal, according to the laws of youth subcultures.