Evgeniy Aleksandrovich Mitta
1963 – Born in Moscow
1988 – Graduated from the Moscow State Academic Art Institute named after V. Surikov
1988-92 – Co-founder of the First Gallery
Since 1994 – Member of the Moscow Union of Artists
Works in collections
Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, Moscow
Prague National Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic
Flash Art Collection, New York, USA
P. Sprovieri, Rome, Italy
F. Cadot, Paris, France
R. Kushner, New York, USA
Exhibitions and auctions
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
1990 First Gallery, Moscow
F.Cadot Gallery, New York, USA
1993 Patricia Shea Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
1996 "Objects for Meditation". XL Gallery, Moscow
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
1986 All-Union Youth Exhibition, Manege, Moscow
XVII Youth Exhibition, House of Artists on Kuznetsky Most, Moscow
1987 "Young Soviet Artists", Arte Fiera, Bologna, Italy
1988 All-Union Youth Exhibition, Manege, Moscow
"Labyrinth", Palace of Youth, Moscow
XVIII Youth Exhibition, Moscow
"Soviet Art", Metropolitan Museum of Art, Manila, Philippines
1989 "Affordable Art", First Gallery, Moscow
"Perspectives of Conceptualism", Peresvetov Lane, Moscow
"Rauschenberg - to us, we - to Rauschenberg", First Gallery, Moscow
"Up to 33...", Palace of Youth, Moscow
1990 Group exhibition, F.Cadot Gallery, New York, USA; Paris, France
XLIV Esposizione Internazionale DArte. La Biennale di Venezia. Soviet Pavilion. Venice, Italy 1991 "Aesthetic Experiments", Kuskovo Estate, Moscow "Contemporary Artists from Moscow", Seibu Art Forum, Tokyo, Japan 1992 "Artisti d’oggi Confronti", Galleria Sprovieri, Rome, Italy "Non Era Cipango - 27 International Artists", Citadella Museale, Cagliari Sardinia, Italy "a Mosca... a Mosca...", Villa Campoleto, Ercolano; Galleria Comunale dArte Moderna, Bologna, Italy
1994 "Spring Exhibition", House of Artists on Kuznetsky Most, Moscow
1995 "Winter Garden", Exhibition Center "Phoenix", Moscow
"Ice Cream - Art" (exhibition-action), Moscow Ice Cream Factory "Ice-Fili", Moscow
"Copyright-96", Aidan Gallery, Moscow
CURATORIAL PROJECTS
1994 "Night of Arts" (with E.Kuprina, G.Abramishvili), Club "Pilot", Moscow
1995 "Artists against Sex" (with E.Kuprina), Nightclub "Manhattan Express", Moscow
STAGE DESIGN
1988 "The Shadow", "Sovremennik-2", Moscow
1990 "Psycho", "Sovremennik-2", Moscow
1996 "The Villainess, or The Cry of The Dolphin", Moscow Art Theatre named after A.P.Chekhov, Moscow
Author about himself
No information provided
Critic
Everyone knows Evgeniy Mitta. Those who missed the results of his first gallery activities in the trio with Aidan Salakhova and Alexander Yakut have surely attended at least one of the three remarkable art actions he organized in the last two years: "Night of Arts" at the Pilot club, "Artists against Sex" at the Manhattan Express club, and "Ice Cream – Art" at the Ice-Fili factory – all these events stood out for their lightness and relaxed presentation, good organization, overall enjoyment, and a certain elusiveness of concept. The latter point (possibly an inevitable condition of placing contemporary art into an "entertainment" context) is very interesting. An acquaintance of mine, an art critic, has an amazing ability to construct a coherent concept from almost any artistic material, sometimes reminding me of the famous university logic professor Evgeniy Kazimirovich Voishvillo, who taught freshmen that the truth or falsity of a statement, its logical structure, not its semantic content, is what matters. Furthermore, the most elegant solution of a problem has the highest value. Our critic is famous precisely for the beauty of his constructions, sometimes taking on baroque forms. So he told me, with some amazement, that he simply could not find an "optical device" to focus on the "Objects for Meditation"; and he experienced quite a legitimate intellectual irritation, familiar to mathematicians or logicians when a problem resists formalization. At this, I remembered Professor Evgeniy Aleksandrovich Bocharov of the same logic department, who (already in the second year) talked about various types of modern informal logics (like Lukasiewicz logic), where a statement can be not only "true" or "false," but also "not true," or "not false," or "probable."
Perhaps Evgeniy Mitta's objects really are neither true nor false. Most likely, it will not be fruitful to apply blunt formal-logic or sophisticated associative methods to them. Obviously, they have a quality—a quality that attracts attention. A modern person of Euro-American civilization, unfortunately, needs (and can) be drawn to a subject either by its external sensomotor parameters or by the importance of the topic (so-called "relevance"). This is where the trick happens. These objects are not meant to be understood, interpreted, or discussed. As honestly stated in the exhibition title, they are for meditation. Without in any way doubting the sincerity of the author's text, I dare suggest that the discussions about "new fear" serve as an accidental lure, having an edible size, recognizable color, and familiar smell. But meditation is something not so much opposite as it is perpendicular to the discursive way of cognition. Here, if successful, instantaneous comprehension occurs. The absence of unambiguous algorithmic procedures means each person finds "their own." But this is natural since true meditation cannot have rules the same for everyone, and everyone tries to express the perceived truth (possibly even the same one) in their own words. The great Indian logician of the 5th century CE, Dignaga, long before Lukasiewicz, faced similar problems and even divided logical inference into two types—"for oneself" and "for others," and formulated a concept about the relative meaning of words. In principle, if you start meditating on the proposed objects, it’s not so hard—as sung in the life-affirming song by AC/DC, "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap"...
S. Khripun. Back In Black. From the catalogue of the exhibition "Objects for Meditation."
XL Gallery, Moscow, 1996.
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