Letter from the Island – Serp, Evgeny Yufit, Vladimir Kustov
In April 2009, Orel Art launched its London premises in an impressive 350 m² space at 7 Howick Place, near Phillips de Pury Auction House in London SW1.
An expansion from the Paris-based gallery and a major addition to the London art market, Orel Art UK is primarily devoted to bringing contemporary Russian art to a wider western audience.
Operating from Paris, Director Ilona Orel has played an instrumental role in raising the profile of Russia’s most significant contemporary and emerging artists through a series of acclaimed exhibitions.
Cementing its reputation as one of London’s most innovative galleries, Orel Art UK breaks new ground with the first ever exhibition of Necrorealist art in Britain, one of most radical underground movements in recent Russian history.
With major shows devoted to Necrorealism coming up at the State Russian Museum in St Petersburg and the Museum of Modern Art Moscow, Necrorealism is finally acknowledged as an artistic movement after years of debate and controversy.
‘Letter from the Island’ brings together an astonishing and unsettling combination of paintings, installations and films, spanning from the 1980s to today, by the movement’s three great representatives: Serp, Evgeny, Yufit, and Vladimir Kustov.
NB: Necrorealism grew out of the Soviet Union in the early 1980s in St Petersburg. As the regime started to crack, a rebellious underground movement by very young artists challenged attitudes to life, death and social norms through absurdist performances in film, and later, paint. The movement aimed to poke fun at the state ideology of supposedly immortal heroes by confronting the viewer with the reality of death.
LETTER FROM THE ISLAND – 8 October – 22 December 2009
Orel Art UK
7 Howick Place
London SW1P 1BB
