M HKA Ensembles

° 1957

Muscovite artist Konstantin Zvezdochetov (whose last name means ‘star-counter’) has long been one of the main representatives of the post-perestroika Russian arts scene, and a well-regarded key figure among a generation of artists who came of age in an artistic landscape formerly dominated by the likes of Ilya Kabakov. His work is characterised by carnivalesque humour and mixes many different geographic and historical styles. Like so many of his colleagues and co-generationists, Zvezdochetov cut his teeth on a wide variety of samizdat-style artist initiatives; according to one story that has become increasingly hard to verify, he was even imprisoned for a short time in the mid-eighties because of a laudatory article on his work that was published in a Paris-based arts journal. Diffferent artists wanted to wrest art away from the diktats of Socialist Realism and therefore came together, albeit underground, to react against the system in their own way. In his youth Zvezdochotov was active in several such groups, but after the fall of the regime he could exhibit without restrictions.