“Sound installation The Queue by Elena Gubanova and Ivan Govorkov is filled with the hum of voices coming from the hanging string bags (called avos’ka in Russian). If you listen to them carefully, you’d realize you’re listening to people queuing for bread in the besieged city. The avos’ka bag is a perfect symbol of the period. It’s very name deriving from the Russian adverb avos’ – “hopefully”, “just in case” hints to positive expectations, ‘Hope, I’ll bring something back in this bag.’
However, in the besieged city one wouldn’t make the food they’ve acquired visible to other people’s eyes. A string bag filled with air and void in the installation “The Line” is an image of all-encompassing hunger. Mundane conversations about “nothing” hiding the main message: how to stay alive, add to the feeling of despair and, at the same time, hope”.
Lyudmila Belova, curator of “Silent Voices” exhibition, 2017
Artist. Born in 1949 in Leningrad, USSR. Graduated from the Ilya Repin State Academic Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (Leningrad, USSR). Works in the fields of philosophy, psychology, painting, drawing, sculpture and installations. Professor of drawing at the Ilya Repin Institute. Recipient of Sergey Kuryokhin Award (Russia, 2012) as “Best Work of Visual Art” (together with Elena Gubanova). His works were exhibited at major Russian and foreign venues, including the Hermitage Museum (St. Petersburg, Russia), Russian Museum (St. Petersburg, Russia), Museum of Moscow (Moscow, Russia), Chelsea Art Museum (New York, USA), Kunstquartier Bethanien (Berlin, Germany), Sky Gallery 2 (Tokyo, Japan). Participant of the Manifesta 10 parallel program (St. Petersburg, Russia, 2014) and several exhibitions parallel to Venice Biennale (biannually since 2011). Since 1990, he has been working in collaboration with Elena Gubanova. Lives and works in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Elena Gubanova
Artist, curator. Born in 1960 in Ulyanovsk, USSR. Graduated from the Ilya Repin State Academic Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (Leningrad, USSR). Works in the fields of painting, sculpture, installations, and video. Recipient of Sergey Kuryokhin Award (Russia, 2012) as “Best Work of Visual Art” (together with Ivan Govorkov). Her works were exhibited at major Russian and foreign venues, including the Hermitage Museum (St. Petersburg, Russia), the Russian Museum (St. Petersburg, Russia), Museum of Moscow (Moscow, Russia), Chelsea Art Museum (New York, USA), Kunstquartier Bethanien (Berlin, Germany). Participant of the Manifesta 10 parallel program (St. Petersburg, Russia, 2014) and several exhibitions parallel to Venice Biennale (biannually since 2011). Since 1990, she has been working in collaboration with Ivan Govorkov. Lives and works in St. Petersburg, Russia.
www.elenagubanova.com