We are not here, only the speed with which we rush past ourselves looking back. The complete and irrevocable relativity of everything. Lost reference point. Simulation simulation: the whole illusion that creates its holographic being in every atom of the same illusory universe.

Eva / Vasilieva is an artist who fits perfectly into the new baroque - our modernity. Her talent is to create “curls” of flying galaxies, they are cast in bronze, twisted by movement spirals in the paintings, vibrate in the “white noise” of photographs and video art.

Whatever the artist would undertake - everything plays in her hands, does not burn, but casts off reflections of the blue flame, as if fireflies are dancing in a dark forest, beckoning and bewitching the viewer.

Its aesthetics is an excess of slipping away: you look and it seems that you will just understand who or what is in front of you, you are drawn to the image ... and he, having slightly stepped out from the swirling, impetuous “impulses” of colors and lines, disappears ... or turns out to be something else. There is absolutely nothing to rely on. And even if we have something more “concrete” before us, such as her work from the early cycle “Kindergarten,” it is still a game, in this case, a game of memories. And it is as unreliable as any memories: our memory is selective in taste, color and smell, it is more a stream of associations than the outline of real events. Everything that is not rhymed with the “mainstream” line prescribed by our unconscious plot hides behind the images of dragons and other monsters or disappears altogether.

By the way, it’s not in vain that classical Baroque loved all these playful putti angels, literally populating them in every corner of cathedrals and paintings. The game of innocence, paradise ... is a defense mechanism of both Baroque culture and human memory.

In the Baroque style (and the “source” and the present) and the biography of Eva / Vasilyeva, she has everything that the “baroque artist” needs so much - conflict with the law, suffering from injustice, the feeling that your protected world is crumbling, almost punk impudence in response on what is happening (the clip “Pink Slippers” filmed “under house arrest” - a challenge and a slap in the face to the condemned and by no means sinless society), and as a result, retirement into creativity, as the only possible free space from the attraction of reality.

Sometimes it seems that Eva / Vasilieva, a kind of reincarnation of Caravaggio, only with the dark eyes of a Russian beauty.

And the exhibition "Eye" in the Museum of the East and Gogol's "Rus", a project open until the end of the year at POP UP MUSEUM - is essentially a baroque performance, and not at all a static "picture". In one case, this is a process designated by context and content as an involuntary homage to Eastern philosophy (and Russia, obviously, is located in the east, if you look from the West), in the other - phantasmagoria and the same homage (Russian literature) in a shopping center, against the background of offices , plastic flowers and swing chairs for relaxation. This craving for classical palaces and business centers, even if it happened by chance (but, as one character said, “accidental is not accidental,”) perfectly expresses the taste that is relevant to our modern time in general and art in particular. With her Hurst sharks, the ghosts of China, the mania of novelty and personality worn down to a recognizable artist-star, media personality and brand.

In my opinion, the product in both cases turned out to be brilliantly accurate.

If you imagine further visual development, then I would not put Eva / Vasilyeva’s work in the sterile spaces of the Museums of Modern Art (this is necessary for a good museum history, but this is not about that, it goes without saying and it will be with her). It would be interesting to build an exposition in the castle, somewhere in the heart of Old Europe with its ruins and lovely gildings that have long turned into a supermarket of "sophisticated culture". Of course it would be barbarism and very Russian (with all shades of scandal and provocation), but it would stir up the space, justifying the myth of us as the "young blood" of Europe. It would be interesting to see ....

In other words, Eva / Vasilieva is the perfect storyline of our time. Tough and feminine, all of the contradictions, as befits an artist who claims to be our modern, living blood of living victims, she is integral in her desire to be happy. She is utterly Truthful in this. And this is invaluable in the era of virtual reality and the deceitfulness of the values ​​of the economy and culture.

I would like to say “bravo!” For such (voluntary or involuntary) getting into the very bull's eye.

Author: Alla Kharitonova, culturologist.