Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe, Russia’s Performance Artist Extraordinaire

The Here Gallery on Taganka has opened up a program in memory of among the most eccentric Moscow performance musicians, Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe (1969-2013). The show is called “The Magic Rainbow Flower” after a youngsters’s book by Valentin Katayev regarding a multicolored magical flower that approves dreams. The show, a memorial to this one-of-a-kind Russian performance musician, is full of photos, collections, messages as well as works of art.

In the West, specifically in America, the transformation of a guy into a flamboyantly dressed woman is nothing stunning and barely unusual. In conventional Russia his efficiencies were usually satisfied with bewilderment as well as in some cases even protested by Orthodox Christian protestors who objected to “sodomitic” pictures.

Mamyshev had two favored ladies he liked to change himself into: the American starlet Marilyn Monroe and also the Soviet celebrity of Stalinist cinematography, Lyubov Orlova. His intelligent as well as amusing improvements were very powerful. Periodically he would certainly transform himself into Soviet pop vocalist Alla Pugacheva as well as appear in places without warning, surprising the general public. Yet Mamyshev-Monroe wasn’t and also didn’t carry out an apology of women. His job was a send-up of the leading and ubiquitous unrefinement and also stereotypes of sexuality in movie industry.

 Courtesy of Here Gallery

Courtesy of Here Gallery If Vladislav Mamyshev’s improvement into Marilyn Monroe was influenced to some extent by Andy Warhol’s prints and also could appear derivative, his Lyubov Orlova was absolutely initial. He was extremely thinking about the picture of this most American of Soviet actresses. In one photograph, she is postured against the background of the cruiser Aurora, resting on the St. Petersburg river promenade with a young seafarer she has actually simply gotten. In another she is talking on the telephone with pursed lips beside a substantial Soviet-style buffet. Or she is lying in her casket as an additional Soviet motion picture star, Vera Maretskaya, leans over her. Andrei Bartenev, an artist as well as the curator of the program, said that Maretskaya is attempting to jab her with a safety and security pin to find out if the old witch is really dead.

Mamyshev-Monroe passed away unfortunately: he drowned in a swimming pool in Bali in 2013. Bartenev, who was likewise a close friend of Mamyshev, said he appears to him in his demands and dreams to be brought back to life.

A lot of the works in the show are by modern artists and also imitators from Moscow and St. Petersburg, representatives of the world of glamour, people that knew Mamysehv-Monroe for decades and invested lots of nights drinking, carousing and also misbehaving with him in clubs as well as restaurants.

The photos are compelling, like Mamyshev in drag with Sharon Stone. Stone looks rather moderate next to Mamyshev, that is the extravagantly dressed sultry female in hefty makeup. 2 photos in the show have actually never been exhibited prior to: the artist made up to look like Marilyn Monroe but with his genitals completely noticeable.

 Alla Perova / facebook

Alla Perova/ facebook One of the key shows is a huge sculpture of an equine from the collection of the artist Igor Butman. Mamyshev-Monroe repainted the cow in girls’ underwears: her back legs are framed in lacy stockings held up by a garter belt, her breast is covered by something like a bra, as well as her front hooves remain in knee-length red handwear covers. The cow’s lips are painted bright red, her eyelashes are greatly mascaraed, as well as she has an enchanting curl under her horns. His cow belonged to a Moscow art installation that put cows repainted for the job throughout the city.

The program is an event of this distinct musician and also a pleasure for any person that likes all things outrageous– although it must be claimed that there is already a mild note of the everyday in what as soon as the unthinkable.

 Courtesy of Here Gallery

Courtesy of Here Gallery Навигация по записям

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