EXHIBITION
ABOUT
Syntax Gallery, in collaboration with MARKS GROUP, presents Down on the Jam a Fly Sat, a new project by Kirill Lebedev (Kto). The exhibition brings together the eponymous painting series, an installation made from construction banners (“Transparencification”), a series of works on matchboxes, and Niche, a cycle documenting the artist’s interventions in the street.
The project Transparencification, created by MARKS GROUP together with Kirill Kto, addresses the hidden inner life of the city. Its key gesture is the cutting of eyes into a construction banner — an intervention that turns the façade skin into a window between the city’s surface and the process through which architecture comes into being.
Down on the jam a fly sat — what an adventure is that
In one of his wall messages, Kirill Kto himself reveals the principle and origin of his practice: “The works that could have appeared here had already been made elsewhere before, mostly in the street.” And this is exactly so. All his works are comments on urban space and existential questions addressed to his own life within that very space. As an artist who has been working in the street for decades, he has developed his own language of themes and symbols — a language that allows these messages to be instantly recognised as belonging to Kirill Kto, even without the author’s signature. Their appearance in a gallery or museum only underlines the fact that their significance has outgrown the everyday. At the same time, once they enter the walls of a gallery or museum, these messages are read through the prism of the diverse visual experience of art history.
This is precisely how I find it interesting to look at them.
EYES. The all-seeing eye is an ancient religious and mystical symbol. The effect of “watching eyes,” repeatedly played out in icons and portrait painting, creates the sensation of a dialogue with the portrait, of “mystery,” of being observed from above — or even of persecution and inevitable punishment.
That is why there can be no question here of many days of painstaking little brushstrokes at an easel in the silence of a studio. Everything must happen swiftly and sharply, in just a couple of seconds. This movement is equivalent to a tag, to a personal signature made during an urban walk.
The city is filled with advertising false façades that conceal reality. But how does one break through to the truth of this reality? The automatic movement of the artist’s hand, armed with a blade, creates a new image in a single gesture. And it is clearly a “minus-image.” A part of the image is removed, exposing the unattractive, yet still real, space behind the false wall.
The project Transparencification, created by MARKS GROUP together with Kirill Kto, addresses the hidden inner life of the city. Its key gesture is the cutting of eyes into a construction banner — an intervention that turns the façade skin into a window between the city’s surface and the process through which architecture comes into being.
Down on the jam a fly sat — what an adventure is that
In one of his wall messages, Kirill Kto himself reveals the principle and origin of his practice: “The works that could have appeared here had already been made elsewhere before, mostly in the street.” And this is exactly so. All his works are comments on urban space and existential questions addressed to his own life within that very space. As an artist who has been working in the street for decades, he has developed his own language of themes and symbols — a language that allows these messages to be instantly recognised as belonging to Kirill Kto, even without the author’s signature. Their appearance in a gallery or museum only underlines the fact that their significance has outgrown the everyday. At the same time, once they enter the walls of a gallery or museum, these messages are read through the prism of the diverse visual experience of art history.
This is precisely how I find it interesting to look at them.
EYES. The all-seeing eye is an ancient religious and mystical symbol. The effect of “watching eyes,” repeatedly played out in icons and portrait painting, creates the sensation of a dialogue with the portrait, of “mystery,” of being observed from above — or even of persecution and inevitable punishment.
That is why there can be no question here of many days of painstaking little brushstrokes at an easel in the silence of a studio. Everything must happen swiftly and sharply, in just a couple of seconds. This movement is equivalent to a tag, to a personal signature made during an urban walk.
The city is filled with advertising false façades that conceal reality. But how does one break through to the truth of this reality? The automatic movement of the artist’s hand, armed with a blade, creates a new image in a single gesture. And it is clearly a “minus-image.” A part of the image is removed, exposing the unattractive, yet still real, space behind the false wall.
Yes, these eyes often look out with menace or reproach, exposing their shamefaced ocular fundus. Sometimes, by contrast, they interact with random advertising slogans — “Investing in the future,” “Improving for you” — or with an urban object, such as a solitary little tree on a lawn. They turn into an object-based visualisation of a verbal formula — under-eye bags — or are worked on further by anonymous repairmen — stitched-up eyes — or simply peer out from behind a fence.
Yet all these experiments also contain a direct reference to the history of contemporary art: to Lucio Fontana’s fundamental gesture of cutting open the plane of the canvas in his search for the Concetto Spaziale — the Spatial Concept. In essence, by cutting open false facades in urban space, the artist is looking for a place for himself.
NICHE. The word itself is derived from Latin — nidus, meaning nest — but in contemporary usage it has acquired an entire spectrum of meanings. In architecture and the urban environment, a niche may be a recess in a wall intended for statues or decoration, now lost; a sealed-up window or doorway, alas already closed with a roller shutter or boards; the gaping windows of abandoned buildings; a place for omnipresent advertising promising free passage; or buffs — caesuras as examples of censorship. In business and marketing, the word denotes a specialised market segment where a company has virtually no competitors. In career and psychology, it means a favourite occupation, profession, or activity in which a person realises their talents and feels comfortable — “to find one’s niche.” In biology, an ecological niche is the sum of all living conditions necessary for the existence of a particular species within an ecosystem. The artist takes all this into account. Moreover, as in Joseph Kosuth’s famous work One and Three Chairs, Kirill Kto considers the niche in three hypostases: the niche as such — an architectural element and an integral part of the urban landscape; the niche as a frame of description and the place where a plot unfolds; and the niche as a fixed artefact, in the form of a photograph.
In his version, the niche manifests selfhood and constantly asks questions, much as simple objects once did in Ilya Kabakov’s dialogues: “Whose niche is this? — Mine! — But this niche is already taken!” And in the artist’s own version: “An inscription in a niche is no substitute at all for the long-awaited sign from above.” Because a niche is the same as a buff, a caesura — from the Latin caesura, a cutting, an incision — a rhythmic pause or semantic restriction as an example of censorship.
THE LADDER — THE SELF-CLIMBER (SAMOLAZKA) — is a favourite character, frequently appearing in Kirill Kto’s works or even speaking directly on his behalf. It is a light, almost animated image, constantly in motion. That is why it is provided not only with little eyes, little legs, and little arms, but sometimes even with sneakers.
In the artist’s interpretation, which appears in one of the drawings, it is a ladder-harbinger: samolazka ordinari parvum. The word parvum is a form of the Latin adjective parvus — small — while ordinarius means corresponding to the rules. The self-climbers are operational assistants, enabling the street artist to reach otherwise inaccessible heights. And so, by paradox, Jacob’s Ladder immediately appears here — the patriarch Jacob’s dream of a ladder between earth and heaven — and, of course, the road to heaven in the superhit Stairway to Heaven. How could it be otherwise? 120 seconds to make it, 5 to contemplate it, 10 to think it over
TYPOGRAPHIC COMPOSITIONS. Bright and colourful. This is one of the most popular and recognisable elements in Kirill Kto’s vocabulary. They are assembled from cheerful coloured letters. But unlike the schoolroom “box of letters and syllables,” they do not stop at basic syllables and words. Instead, they form insightful existential messages that disguise themselves as colloquial speech or children’s verse in the spirit of the OBERIU poets.
And if poetry for children is traditionally presented as a didactic exercise, in the work of the OBERIU it breaks free into the wilds of language. This is precisely the method Kirill Kto constantly practises. He uses wordplay, haiku, limericks, alliterations, puns built on ambiguity, riddles, chains of words, compound words, and phonetic play. Yes, in practice such games are often used in language development activities for children — but who said that the same questions cannot be asked of adults?
DOWN ON THE JAM A FLY SAT. The formula that gives the exhibition its title in fact also comes from poetry. Anaphora is a stylistic device in which lines or stanzas of a poem begin with the same phrase but continue differently. If the same phrase begins every stanza, this is called stanzaic anaphora. If not only the beginning but also the ending of the lines is repeated, the device is known as circular composition or framing. The opening of the phrase is familiar to all of us from childhood — or, more precisely, one wants to hope that children’s folklore is still alive and passed on through generations. The phrase is most often considered anonymous, but it clearly reveals an ironic distance from the procedure of forcibly memorising poems in primary school. There is, however, a well-known anecdote told by Faina Ranevskaya: that the continuation, “and that’s the end of that,” was invented by Sergei Mikhalkov in response to an attempt by his wife, the children’s poet Natalia Konchalovskaya, to write a long “antibacterial” poem. In any case, what is invaluable is the experience of such versification as the acquisition of irony in relation to dogma. And so every viewer or reader can invent their own continuation of the phrase, or melancholically repeat after Kirill Kto:
“Down on the jam a fly sat —
the crack of doom is where we’re at, —
receive your blessing just like that, —
into rapture we shall splat, —
now it’s luck and then it’s bad, —
and it goes on just like that, —
I love thee, Peter’s own creation, —
the cockroach ate the biscuit flat, —
what awaits us Sunday, drat, —
when do we wake up from that, —
an earthquake started, rat-a-tat-tat, —
the dragonfly will save us yet, —
crowds and chaos where we’re at, —
and now apologize for that, —
that’s the adventure, just like that.”
Yet all these experiments also contain a direct reference to the history of contemporary art: to Lucio Fontana’s fundamental gesture of cutting open the plane of the canvas in his search for the Concetto Spaziale — the Spatial Concept. In essence, by cutting open false facades in urban space, the artist is looking for a place for himself.
NICHE. The word itself is derived from Latin — nidus, meaning nest — but in contemporary usage it has acquired an entire spectrum of meanings. In architecture and the urban environment, a niche may be a recess in a wall intended for statues or decoration, now lost; a sealed-up window or doorway, alas already closed with a roller shutter or boards; the gaping windows of abandoned buildings; a place for omnipresent advertising promising free passage; or buffs — caesuras as examples of censorship. In business and marketing, the word denotes a specialised market segment where a company has virtually no competitors. In career and psychology, it means a favourite occupation, profession, or activity in which a person realises their talents and feels comfortable — “to find one’s niche.” In biology, an ecological niche is the sum of all living conditions necessary for the existence of a particular species within an ecosystem. The artist takes all this into account. Moreover, as in Joseph Kosuth’s famous work One and Three Chairs, Kirill Kto considers the niche in three hypostases: the niche as such — an architectural element and an integral part of the urban landscape; the niche as a frame of description and the place where a plot unfolds; and the niche as a fixed artefact, in the form of a photograph.
In his version, the niche manifests selfhood and constantly asks questions, much as simple objects once did in Ilya Kabakov’s dialogues: “Whose niche is this? — Mine! — But this niche is already taken!” And in the artist’s own version: “An inscription in a niche is no substitute at all for the long-awaited sign from above.” Because a niche is the same as a buff, a caesura — from the Latin caesura, a cutting, an incision — a rhythmic pause or semantic restriction as an example of censorship.
THE LADDER — THE SELF-CLIMBER (SAMOLAZKA) — is a favourite character, frequently appearing in Kirill Kto’s works or even speaking directly on his behalf. It is a light, almost animated image, constantly in motion. That is why it is provided not only with little eyes, little legs, and little arms, but sometimes even with sneakers.
In the artist’s interpretation, which appears in one of the drawings, it is a ladder-harbinger: samolazka ordinari parvum. The word parvum is a form of the Latin adjective parvus — small — while ordinarius means corresponding to the rules. The self-climbers are operational assistants, enabling the street artist to reach otherwise inaccessible heights. And so, by paradox, Jacob’s Ladder immediately appears here — the patriarch Jacob’s dream of a ladder between earth and heaven — and, of course, the road to heaven in the superhit Stairway to Heaven. How could it be otherwise? 120 seconds to make it, 5 to contemplate it, 10 to think it over
TYPOGRAPHIC COMPOSITIONS. Bright and colourful. This is one of the most popular and recognisable elements in Kirill Kto’s vocabulary. They are assembled from cheerful coloured letters. But unlike the schoolroom “box of letters and syllables,” they do not stop at basic syllables and words. Instead, they form insightful existential messages that disguise themselves as colloquial speech or children’s verse in the spirit of the OBERIU poets.
And if poetry for children is traditionally presented as a didactic exercise, in the work of the OBERIU it breaks free into the wilds of language. This is precisely the method Kirill Kto constantly practises. He uses wordplay, haiku, limericks, alliterations, puns built on ambiguity, riddles, chains of words, compound words, and phonetic play. Yes, in practice such games are often used in language development activities for children — but who said that the same questions cannot be asked of adults?
DOWN ON THE JAM A FLY SAT. The formula that gives the exhibition its title in fact also comes from poetry. Anaphora is a stylistic device in which lines or stanzas of a poem begin with the same phrase but continue differently. If the same phrase begins every stanza, this is called stanzaic anaphora. If not only the beginning but also the ending of the lines is repeated, the device is known as circular composition or framing. The opening of the phrase is familiar to all of us from childhood — or, more precisely, one wants to hope that children’s folklore is still alive and passed on through generations. The phrase is most often considered anonymous, but it clearly reveals an ironic distance from the procedure of forcibly memorising poems in primary school. There is, however, a well-known anecdote told by Faina Ranevskaya: that the continuation, “and that’s the end of that,” was invented by Sergei Mikhalkov in response to an attempt by his wife, the children’s poet Natalia Konchalovskaya, to write a long “antibacterial” poem. In any case, what is invaluable is the experience of such versification as the acquisition of irony in relation to dogma. And so every viewer or reader can invent their own continuation of the phrase, or melancholically repeat after Kirill Kto:
“Down on the jam a fly sat —
the crack of doom is where we’re at, —
receive your blessing just like that, —
into rapture we shall splat, —
now it’s luck and then it’s bad, —
and it goes on just like that, —
I love thee, Peter’s own creation, —
the cockroach ate the biscuit flat, —
what awaits us Sunday, drat, —
when do we wake up from that, —
an earthquake started, rat-a-tat-tat, —
the dragonfly will save us yet, —
crowds and chaos where we’re at, —
and now apologize for that, —
that’s the adventure, just like that.”
Dmitry Pilikin
EXHIBITION VIEWS
ARTIST
Kirill Lebedev (Kto) is an artist who has been working in the street environment for more than 25 years. He was born in 1984 in Zelenograd. He was a member of the art groups Zachem? / Why? (2002–2009) and No Future Forever (2005–2009). He was co-curator of the project The Wall at the Winzavod Centre for Contemporary Art, Moscow, from 2010 to 2013; initiator and organiser of uLichny Vklad / Street Contribution, Russia’s first award in the field of street art, in 2013; and co-organiser of Pasha 183’s solo exhibition Our Cause Is a Feat! at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art in 2014.
