The Moscow Museum of Modern Art devotes its five floors to one of the most controversial artists of the former USSR. From Azerbaijani origins, Rauf Mamedov takes advantage of the space for a retrospective of his work. The exhibition is organized by curator Aïdan Salakhova, herself being an artist and photographer. Her gallery has already exposed on several occasions Mamedov’s works, which constitute her main support.

The exhibition primarily displays large format photographs organized in triptychs. The themes addressed are biblical, and the influence is resolutely postmodern. The Flemish painting school is a dominating influence, with staging clearly inspired by Brueghel, as well as a taste of deep black directly inherited from Rembrandt’s. The phantasmical elements remind us in a more discrete way the works of Hieronymus Bosch. It must also be stressed that Rauf Mamedov is an artist using photography as the predominant tool in his work.

The exhibition comprises two unique particularities. Mamedov usually works with models having suffered from schizophrenia or Down syndrome, who incarnate biblical characters such as the apostles and Jesus Christ. Though this approach is not done in a sensationalist perspective. Mamedov pursues via his work a quest for “the origins of man”, before capitalism could impose any socialization and “schizophrenic norm” (referencing Deleuze and Guattari).

According to him, these schizophrenic models (that he has known long before as he has personally worked in a psychiatric asylum) are incapable of controlling their conscious and unconscious movements. In relation to models with Down syndrome, they play with sincere and natural perfection these organized biblical stagings. In spite of the irony and humor that are present, his work doesn’t seek to mock religion, faith or the handicaps of the models.

There is yet another disturbing element in the exhibition, on the last floor. It consists of the display devoted to the interethnic massacres in southern Kirghizstan last June. These images of death portrayed by Mamedov contain an unprecedented level of violence, with the intention of generating contemplation in the visitor on moral issues: How did we get to this? There is no aesthetic treatment. Texts from the author, photographs and videos delve into shock. Whatever form it takes, the work of Mamedov reflects an hegemony of moral and philosophical dimension on the aesthetics itself.

Emmanuel Grynszpan, Moscow

Until March 13, 2011
Moscow Museum of Modern Art at 17 Yermolaevsky Lane
http://www.mmoma.ru/