ARTIST OF THE YEAR – MISHMASH ART GROUP

MishMash is an art group consisting of artists Misha Leykin and Masha Sumnina.

Misha Leykin graduated from the Moscow Institute of Architecture in 1994, was a member of the Obledenenie Arkhitektorov group (1997–2001). Masha Sumnina graduated from the Institute of Printwork in 2001 The art of MishMash is distinguished by close study of art boundaries inherited from the representatives of Moscow romantic conceptualism movement. Their “peculiar lyricism and humanity of art” is fueled by trust in random elements and sympathy towards purely private material. “Our names combined together - mishmash - in many languages means jumble, confusion. We bring uncontrollable forces into our works - wind, mold, water, spectator, coincidence, found art, etc., exploring the relationship between chaos and order. We do not create a recognizable visual style, because the task, the concept — is essential, and for each we find its own material,” – comment the artists.

As part of Cosmoscow 2019, MishMash will present a total microspective of their work.

One in many images, it is nowhere and everywhere: it grows under the baseboard and makes its way at the joints, settles in the narrow passages of the end walls and lives in mismatches between the literal and metaphysical, personal and collective, material and elusive, known and mysterious, microscopic and immense,  future technology and hideoism*.

*Hideoism is free from norms and regulations. It finds beauty in the ugly and perceives events as a sequence of obstacles and their overcoming by necessary means here and now. Hideoism is the ability to observe the amazing score of a virtuoso dance performed intentionally and randomly.

Alexey Maslyaev