Multimedia Art Museum. Moscow
Мультимедиа Арт музей, Москва

July 3 - September 15, 2014

Multimedia Art Museum. Moscow.
(E-E) Evgenij Kozlov.
A selection of 33 photo collages from the series "E-E Classic (НЛО - UFO)"

The wish to show the uniqueness of a person’s creative potential has led Evgenij Kozlov to start a series called “E-E Classic (НЛО-UFO)”, which has become his main project in 2014. Approximately two hundred painted photo collages render homage to his fellow artists and creative people close to him: Ekaterina Andreeva, Valery Alakhov, Denis Egelsky, Hannelore Fobo, Georgy Gurianov, Andrey Khlobystin, Bob Koshelokhov, Oleg Kotelnikov, Sergey Kurykhin and Pop Mekhanika, Viktor Kuznetsov, Vladislav Mamychev-Monroe, Bella Matveeva, Oleg Maslov, Andrey Medvedev, Timur Novikov, Natalia Pivovarova, Ivetta Pomerantseva, Inal Savchenkov, Ivan Sotnikov, Youlia Strauss, Olga Tobreluts, Viktor Tsoy and KINO, Igor Verichev, Andrius Venclova, Evgeny Yufit, to name but a few. The series also includes portraits and self-portraits of Evgenij Kozlov. ....
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E-E Classic (НЛО-UFO)

The wish to show the uniqueness of a person’s creative potential has led Evgenij Kozlov to start a series called “E-E Classic (НЛО-UFO)”, which has become his main project in 2014. Approximately two hundred painted photo collages render homage to his fellow artists and creative people close to him: Ekaterina Andreeva, Valery Alakhov, Denis Egelsky, Hannelore Fobo, Georgy Gurianov, Andrey Khlobystin, Bob Koshelokhov, Oleg Kotelnikov, Sergey Kurykhin and Pop Mekhanika, Viktor Kuznetsov, Vladislav Mamychev-Monroe, Bella Matveeva, Oleg Maslov, Andrey Medvedev, Timur Novikov, Natalia Pivovarova, Ivetta Pomerantseva, Inal Savchenkov, Ivan Sotnikov, Youlia Strauss, Olga Tobreluts, Viktor Tsoy and KINO, Igor Verichev, Andrius Venclova, Evgeny Yufit, to name but a few. The series also includes portraits and self-portraits of Evgenij Kozlov.

The photographs are mainly from the 1980s and 1990s, many were taken in his Leningrad or Berlin studios, mostly by him or by myself. Kozlov glued them on red or blue graph paper in an A4 format which he uses as an extension of the picture and frame at the same time. The pre-requisite for a photograph to be selected is that it must show some strange and unusual element, something intriguing, either in a small detail, for instance, in a glass, a shadow, a candle, a person’s glance, a spot on the ear, the position of the fingers, or in the image as such. This “strangeness”, however banal it might look at first sight, is identified as a UFO or НЛО (NLO), the Russian abbreviation for UFO. It is the element from outer space, the presence of an alien but benevolent power as a condition for any creation. Locating the UFO with the person or persons on the photo or just stating its existence, Evgenij Kozlov visualizes inspiration for a specific moment of time. Inspiration, a purely spiritual agent, has become matter.

As we see this affiliation of a person with his daimon, we arrive at a visual definition of an artist as an inspired person, a person “under influence”. It is a double definition: the person on the image is perceived as an artist, and it is an artist – Evgenij Kozlov – who is able to show us this: Kozlov resumes his statement with the word “CLASSIC” written in large letters on the photo collage. In other words and contrary to common practise, “classic” is not attributed to the established result of a historic process, but is stated at the beginning of such a process, where, as long as a person remains a true host for this UFO, whatever they do will become a “classic”.

And if this sounds effusive, it is just remarkable that the compositions themselves are void of any pathos. Sometimes laconic, sometimes rich in details, they charm the viewer with their small “E-E” and “UFO” stamped letters, the dominating graphic symbols of “CLASSIC” and the delicate drawings continuing single features from the photo to the graph paper. In this way, the realistic print photos and the fragile paper with its geometric pattern create a subtle balance between the real and imaginary world. The imaginary world is partly hidden: invisible, drawings of the figures in these pictures take their shelter beneath the photo.

Hannelore Fobo, August 2014
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