Look above, the sky is falling

The exhibition aims to demonstrate a way of orientation of a man inside a chaotic: half-real half-immeasurable society. The title quotation is taken from the article of the same name by Pedro Neves Marques, a Portuguese artist and writer, in order to indicate the current state of society, which finds itself in the face of dramatic changes and the need to redefine itself. The project proposes a method of this redefinition by measuring against values of different scales: micro, macro, and mega-systems of the world. Today, there are, conditionally, two ways of life: material, that is, measurable, and informational — immeasurable, where a person extends outside him/herself as an infinite system. An immeasurable society is a new place in which we have to live. This type of life takes the earth from under your feet — it forces you to look up and see if the sky is falling.

Large landmarks — land and sky — always in their places. Disorientation and confusion in the conditions of informational existence provoke the need to find and identify, that is, to commensurate. The artist is the one who is constantly engaged in this measurement, coordinating and reflecting the discrete processes of the present. The group project “Look Above, the Sky Falls” is trying to describe these processes, to identify general trends, and to lead the viewer along the aligned coordinate system.

The exhibition space is divided into different reference systems, that altogether constitute the relationship between a person and the world. Starting from graphic works and objects, witnesses of the introspective process, there is a movement to photos and video works describing the relationship of a person in society and the city, to a total installation — the analogue of a large mega system: the universe.

Collecting artists who are completely different in mood and approach for curatorial statements is an intuitive action, drawing up a kind of “mindscape” of contemporary young art. Here there are decorative things, and political statements, minimalism and excessiveness. The presented works are united by what can be called “new baroque” — a set of tendencies of time, when the world leaves from under their feet (as the Earth used to be from the center of the solar system), and requires a new systematization. The variety of forms, and on the other hand, neurotic rationalism caused by the trauma of geocentrism — is repeated today in a new round of self-determination.