Irina Nakhova. Gaze

Elena Petrovskaya, curator:

 «Nowadays we inevitably translate painting into another language as far as we do not have any cultural means to see it the way it was perceived at the moment of its creation — it could be seen as hierolatry, or an act of glorification of royalty or dignitaries, or a way of comprehending the world. It cannot be denied that radical experiments with the language of pictorial art itself are neither shocking nor eye-opening experience anymore. Even abstract art is seen as a lesson to be drawn from paintings that cannot be subject to direct description. That translation is ubiquitous and is meant to adapt painting as a media to our contemporary gaze that lost its ability to see the painterly. Irina Nakhova wants to bring this gaze back to us. Still, there is a paradox: it is only possible to restore it through the means of modern technologies. Breaking into the museum space, Irina Nakhova acts like a spy — her silent screens undermine the continuity of the history of art itself, revealing unexpected stitches and details that have little meaning on their own. They bring back the lost feeling of painting as a skill, as a man-made practice in its basis. They highlight the painting. Of course, that way does not lead us to a source, – we can go back neither to the "real" painting nor to the "true" gaze commensurate with it. Still, there is much more in that witty simulation. It is a hint of an opportunity for prolongation of life of the painting; and — we have to admit it —  means of that prolongation have no relation to painting as a visual language».