Artist: Sveta Mordovskaya
Exhibition title: Monuments
Venue: Cherish, Petit-Lancy, Geneva, Switzerland
Date: June 12 – August 31, 2020
Photography: Nathalie Rebholz / all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Cherish, Petit-Lancy
my bedroom faces the backyard and ive never had one exactly a backyard, its overgrown and you would think its been designated or pre planned it has, concrete is below and things weed out all over things are over or undergrown there are ways to manicure a lawn that i am not entirely familiar with in short i dont know how to interact with it when we moved in, james mohamed and myself, there was a weird block of tiles, really nice beige shades, and a hole, maybe for a type of umbrella thing to fit into or a laundry device, about five trees lived there, ripe for some type of blair witch significance or cosplay relationship, an overturned swingset towards the corner of the compound, like a large child just tipped it over in a flurry of anger or resentment, being a much smaller child i tried to tip it back the other way to no avail also, is that a porta potty, maybe, or a chicken coop, miracle of swiss design if either, altogether abandoned like many things in and around this house were are and will be the miracle then in Sveta Mordovskaya’s intervention is its insidiousness. underlying architectures i once took for granted while staring out into the dead space of my garden at night become avenues and highways for occult activity, paths to oblivion, monuments grazing the night sky on particularly long drives through barren countrysides on family trips youd rather do without.
the objects themselves, sourced between second hand stores, flea markets, craft suppliers and the like are suited to the elements, id like to see them weather the storm, as they are now, writing in a beautiful rainfall i see ceramic gnomes, iridescent plastics and quick drying clay engorged at points, gently worn down in others, the juxtaposition in the keeping of these items, designated to the shelves of maybe your grandmother, or ways of learning in seeing family keep some things discard others and use some material to adorn or envelope the other for gifts and in memoriam,
i see the work here as meditations on memory being simple as obsolete, where can one keep knick knacks in states of moving from apartment to apartment as artists do, on valorizing trinkets and shades of something reflected back on us by decorative plastics, on what those feel and look like weighed down by water, by the elements and overgrown when you dont get to keep things isnt it better to bury them in real time and with little effort on your part by placing them in the path of overgrowth, to let by gones be what tears down time itself, i could imagine these found by an interlocutor in twenty years time not asking whats this but whys this, and maybe when all such monuments have been tossed into the sea or channel can we lend a little memory to the things such as these we saw entangled in real time this installation will most likely come down after the summer is over and its traces gone after the house it sits in back of is torn down by the bank, but if it didnt it would be right at home
– Ser Serpas
Cherish and the artist would like to thank Sitara Abuzar Ghaznawi & Michael Zimmermann
With the support of Fondation Nestlé pour l’Art and FPLCE. Courtesy of Weiss Falk
Sveta Mordovskaya, Monuments, 2020, exhibition view, Cherish, Petit-Lancy, Geneva
Sveta Mordovskaya, Monuments I, 2020, gift foil, textiles, variable dimensions
Sveta Mordovskaya, Monuments I, 2020, gift foil, textiles, variable dimensions
Sveta Mordovskaya, Monuments, 2020, exhibition view, Cherish, Petit-Lancy, Geneva
Sveta Mordovskaya, Monuments II, 2020, found figurines, variable dimensions
Sveta Mordovskaya, Monuments II, 2020, found figurines, variable dimensions
Sveta Mordovskaya, Monuments II, 2020, found figurines, variable dimensions
Sveta Mordovskaya, Monuments III, 2020, straw, PVC sheets, variable dimensions
Sveta Mordovskaya, Monuments III, 2020, straw, PVC sheets, variable dimensions
Sveta Mordovskaya, Monuments III, 2020, straw, PVC sheets, variable dimensions
Sveta Mordovskaya, Monuments, 2020, exhibition view, Cherish, Petit-Lancy, Geneva
Sveta Mordovskaya, Monuments IV, 2020, air dry clay, wire, variable dimensions
Sveta Mordovskaya, Monuments IV, 2020, air dry clay, wire, variable dimensions
Sveta Mordovskaya, Monuments, 2020, exhibition view, Cherish, Petit-Lancy, Geneva
