Dimitri Kozyrev "Lost Landscapes"

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Dimitri kozyrev november 15 – december 11, 2010

LOST Landscapes

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Cover detail:

LOST EDGE #25, 2008

acrylic and oils on canvas

60” x 48”

right detail:

LOST EDGE #25, 2008

acrylic and oils on canvas

60” x 48”

Dimitri kozyrev november 15 – December 11, 2010

Lost Landscapes

130 lincoln avenue, Suite d, Santa fe, nM 87501 | p (505) 983-9555 | f (505) 983-1284

www.davidrichardContemporary.com | [email protected]

GalleRy DirectoRs

david eichholtz & richard Barger

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Until recently, henri Bergson and

gilles deleuze’s complementary theories of

the virtual have had very little scholarly or

critical application to the visual arts, partic-

ularly painting. this is hardly surprising giv-

en henri Bergson’s early antipathy towards

the analytic, ‘scientific’ Cubism of modern-

ists such as Braque, Picasso and gris, which

he dismissed, along with cinema, as a static

and distortingly linear euclidean spatializa-

tion of the real experience of durée, which

he more accurately described as an internal,

qualitative multiplicity of pure intuition that

defied both segmentation and traditional

distinctions between virtual and actual,

memory and objective matter. instead, in

Creative evolution, Bergson called for a phi-

losophy of science where the philosopher

will see “the material world melt back into

a simple flux, a continuity of flowing, a be-

coming.” 2

in many respects, the works of

russian-born dimitri Kozyrev can be read

as an attempt to update and revitalize this

stalled Cubistic debate by paradoxically

making the fragment itself – obviously

anathema to Bergson - the vehicle for a di-

rect access to time as a manifestation of

incommensurable difference. for example,

in the early (2001-3) “lost landscapes”

and “Black Square” series, Kozyrev’s sun-

drenched Southern California topographies

expressed a specifically deleuzian (and

by extension, Bergsonian) sense of time

and space: clear-cut euclidian geometries

were subverted in favor of a more hyper-

bolic, ‘autopian’ trajectory, as if the world

were viewed from a speeding automobile

or airplane cockpit, or through the splin-

tered, kaleidoscopic fragments of shattered

glass. in other words, Kozyrev employed a

fluidly dynamic painterly vocabulary along-

side montage-like segmentation in order

to deny the spectator the comforts of a

1. gilles deleuze, Proust and Signs, trans. richard howard, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000, p. 154.

2. henri Bergson, Creative Evolution, trans. arthur Mitchell, lanham, Md: University Press of america, 1983, p. 369.

It is the work of art that produces within itself and upon itself its own effects, and is filled with

them and nourished by them: the work of art is nourished by the truths it engenders. – Gilles

Deleuze .1

Deleuze, Cubism and the becoming of

durée: crystallized space and Bergsonian

flux in the paintings of Dimitri Kozyrev

by Colin Gardner

Professor of Critical Theory and Integrative Studies

University of California, Santa Barbara

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sustaining visual ground. occasionally, we

were encouraged to focus on a specific

detail but more often than not Kozyrev de-

territorialized our perception, as our mind

was quickly caught up in the overall ‘line of

flight’ of anticipating what is yet to come,

grasping the immediate moment in our pe-

ripheral vision, or recalling what we have

just witnessed in our virtual memory, as if

simultaneously viewing the world through

a rear view mirror. thus, for Kozyrev as for

Bergson, “duration is the continuous prog-

ress of the past which gnaws into the future

and which swells as it advances. and as the

past grows without ceasing, so also there is

no limit to its preservation.” 3

Kozyrev attempted to express this

middle ground between objective specific-

ity and subjective incommensurability by

representing the gaps in our attention rath-

er than the concrete object or landscape

per se. thus in this body of work details are

sketched in - a line of trees, a rough hori-

zon line, the receding lines of street lamps,

a curved section of freeway - so that topog-

raphy is reduced to a series of minimalistic

signifiers. instead of a picturesque or pan-

oramic spectacle, we are made more aware

of vast expanses of cool, billboard-like col-

ors which “invade” the scene so that it is

often difficult to discern the dividing line

between nature and simulacrum, sky and

earth, foreground and background, aerial

view and ground-level perspective. this

constantly shifting spatial dynamic under-

mines the cone-of-vision, single point per-

spective of the traditional landscape so that

we are caught in a cubistic spatial limbo,

unsure whether we are in virtual or actual

space. the result is a collapse of linear or

chronological time into overlapping shards

of active memory, in which past (or more

accurately, the virtual, which for Bergson

contains the sum aggregate of all pasts),

present and future collapse into pure durée.

in “all is Well,” a subsequent series

of diptychs, Kozyrev applied similar prin-

ciples to his appropriation of 1920s avant-

garde historical sources. drawing upon the

Cubo-futurist, Constructivist and Supre-

matist design principles of his native rus-

sia as well as the utilitarian pragmatism of

the german Bauhaus, Kozyrev juxtaposed

these modernist tropes with a vermeer-like

dutch interior or the depiction of a ruined

bunker in finland, exploding the images’

specifically avant-garde contextual logic

into a postmodern pastiche of histori-

cal culture, folding together the legacy of

16th-century mercantilism with the brutal

effects of mechanized warfare (it’s no ac-

cident that camouflage was invented during

World War one by a painter, guirand de

Scevola, modeling its optical effects on les-

sons learned from Cubism). in this way, ev-

ery picture becomes grist for the painter’s

cubistic mill, acting as building blocks in a

Occasionally we are en-

couraged to focus on a

specific detail but more

often than not Kozyrev

deterritorialized our

perception

3. Ibid., p. 4.

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new constructivist aesthetic, in which any-

thing can be juxtaposed against anything

else, and in which genealogical history

dies in order to be reborn as pure produc-

tion, as pure painting. thus even a series of

Malevich-like monochromatic squares lose

their Suprematist, trans-rational theoretical

origins and become another form of mental

landscape, isolated cogs in a much larger,

untotalizable artistic machine, a machine of

pure resonance.

in this respect, Kozyrev’s method

closely resembles that of Marcel Proust,

particularly in their common use of trans-

versal trajectories that bridge the gaps

across and between seemingly autonomous

spatio-temporal entities. a transversal is a

passage without interval that affirms a spe-

cific difference, all the better to disclose the

essence of time that underpins all apparent

artistic “unities.” thus, in his two most recent

series, “lost edge” and “lost one,” Kozyrev

creates transverse intersections between

actual, physical landscapes – particularly

those ravaged by war - man-made military

structures and architectures, and their cor-

responding mental equivalents, blurring the

distinction between material and immate-

rial. once again his main building block is

the fragment, or perhaps more accurately,

the ruin. it is significant, for example, that

in Proust, the little patch of yellow wall that

young Marcel admires in vermeer’s View of

Delft becomes a greater manifestation of

the essence of art-as-time than the picture

as a whole, instigating an implicating series

of signs and correspondences that reach

across linear time and space. thus, as de-

leuze points out, “the dragons of Balbec,

the patch of wall in the vermeer, the little

phrase of vinteuil, mysterious viewpoints,

tell us the same thing as Chateaubriand’s

wind: they function without ‘sympathy,’

they do not make the work into an organic

totality, but rather each acts as a fragment

that determines a crystallization.” 4

Kozyrev employs this crystalliza-

tion to implicate and critique both past

and current totalitarian regimes (most sig-

nificantly the U.S.S.r. under Stalin), their

policies of militarist expansionism and

their tendency to co-opt and/or censor all

avant-garde movements into an overriding

ideological purview. “lost edge” thus has a

double register, connoting the blunting of

the cutting edge of the avant-garde in both

its artistic and military definitions, raising

the question of whether this edge can ever

be re-honed and sharpened for future cre-

ative use. Kozyrev achieves this transversal

connection between avant-gardes through

manifest and latent reference to an aggre-

gate of spatial fragments that interlock and

imbricate each other like cogs and gears

LOST EDGE #22, 2008,

48” x 60” acrylic and oils on canvas

4. deleuze, Proust and Signs, p. 115.

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in an elaborate machine. thus we see allu-

sions to Malevich’s early, iconic pictures of

peasant women (c. 1912), which represent

an uneasy fusion of neo-primitive style with

Cubism and futurism, the Cubo-futurist

masterpiece, The Knife Grinder (1912-13)

and the then infamous Black Square of 1915.

these early utopian references resonate

in juxtaposition with ruins of the fortifica-

tions of the Mannerhiem line, which, like its

more famous equivalent, the Maginot line

in france, was built to protect finland from

the advances of its bellicose neighbor, in this

case the Soviet military avant-garde. like

all such attempts at clear cut demarcation,

finland’s attempt at self-defense proved

impotent in the face of modern techniques

of warfare (Blitzkrieg, like Shock and awe,

paid no lip service to the linear bulwarks of

bunkers and trenches, no matter how so-

phisticated) and today the fortifications lie

in ruins, reclaimed by nature as they have

become progressively overgrown by weeds

and grasses.

interestingly, this model of the

vegetal is perhaps the work’s metaphorical

saving grace, for although it alludes to an

intrinsic and inevitable degeneration and

co-option within both areas of the avant-

garde, it is also a driving force of art’s po-

tential renewal, for, as in Proust and Berg-

son, the machine of eternal decay is also

proof positive of the forced movement of

time, and, by extension, the creative force

field of durée. like Proust, Kozyrev com-

bines the idea of death with a dilation of

time in which the fragment or ruin becomes

the self-determined producer of resonanc-

es that transcend historical specificities. a

broken fence, the silhouette of a german

steel helmet, giant shards of concrete, jag-

ged Suprematist geometries (as if el lissitz-

ky’s sparring squares and wedges had been

torn asunder by an unforgiving shredder),

the bared skeleton of a looming Modern-

ist edifice, a wintry landscape – all collapse

together as an assemblage of difference(s),

where time is dilated as if viewed through

a telescope. “Such a work,” says deleuze,

“having for subject time itself, has no need

to write [or, in this case, paint] by apho-

risms: it is in the meanders and rings of an

anti-logos style that it makes the requisite

detours in order to gather up the ultimate

fragments, to sweep along at different

speeds all the pieces, each one of which re-

fers to a different whole, to no whole at all,

or to no other whole than that of style.” 5

a transverse style, one might add, that will

save painting so that it can live on, live to

die yet another death, the better to affirm

the creative evolution of duration itself.

IN...”lost edge”...kozyrev creates transverse inter-

sections between actual, physical landscapes...and

their corresponding mental equivalents...

5. Ibid.

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LOST EDGE #20, 2008


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LOST EDGE #22, 2008


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LOST EDGE #25, 2008


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LOST EDGE #28, 2009


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99.999 SErIES #1, 2009

24" x 34" acrylic and oils on canvas

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99.999 SErIES #2, 2009

24" x 34" acrylic and oils on canvas

99.999 SErIES #5, 2009


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BLaCK SqUarE #19, 2002

53.5" x 34.5" acrylic on canvas

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BLaCK SqUarE #20, 2003

41" x 35.5" acrylic on canvas

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whITE SqUarE - BLaCK SErIES #23, 2002

48" x 36" acrylic on canvas

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LOST LanDSCaPE #6, 2001


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Dimitri Kozyrev

Selected One Person Exhibitions:

2012 Mark Moore gallery, los angeles, Ca

2011 Last One, Benrimon Contemporary, new York, nY

2010 Lost Landscapes, david richard Contemporary, Santa fe, nM

2009 Lost Edge, Mark Moore gallery, los angeles, Ca

2006 golf Coast Museum of art, largo, fl

2005 Cirrus gallery, los angeles, Ca

2004 Journeys II, Cirrus gallery, los angeles, Ca

2003 Drawings, Cirrus gallery, los angeles, Ca

2001 Lost Landscapes, Contemporary arts forum, Santa Barbara, Ca

Selected Group Exhibitions:

2010 Gimme Shelter, Mixed greens gallery, new York, nY

2010 Sites of Memory, Stephan Stoyanov gallery, new York, nY

2010 Made in Tucson, MoCa, tucson, aZ

2009 VIII International Biennale, Museum of Modern art, Krasnoyarsk, russia

2009 Gary h. Brown Collection, University art Museum, UCSB, Santa Barbara, Ca

2009 Trouble In Paradise: tucson Museum of art, tucson, aZ

2009 Fast Forward: Channing Peake gallery, Santa Barbara, Ca

2008 Future Tense: reshaping the landscape, neuberger Museum of art, Purchase, nY

2008 Ben Maltz gallery, otis College, los angeles, Ca

2008 Claremont graduate University, Pomona, Ca

2007 Ultrasonic International II, Mark Moore gallery, los angeles, Ca

2006 F[acts]igures,artwalkamsterdam,amsterdam,netherlands

2005 Incognito, Santa Monica Museum of art, Santa Monica, Ca

2005 Fineline, new Drawings, Cirrus gallery, los angeles, Ca

2004 armory art fair, new York, nY

2004 Contemporary arts forum, Santa Barbara, Ca

2003 road Show, george adams gallery, new York, nY

2003 abstracted, limn gallery, San francisco, Ca

2002 Snapshot, elizabeth leach gallery, Portland, or

2002 Flat Files rendez Vous, Post vs. Pierogi gallery, Post, los angeles, Ca

2001 auxiliary Settings, Cirrus gallery, los angeles, Ca

Publications/Reviews

andrews, Scott. art ltd., “artist Profile”, november, 2010

regan, Margaret. tucson Weekly, “Cities and earth”, July 22, 2010

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featured artist, www.guernicamag.com, “lost edge”, May 2010

featured artist, www.artmargins.com, august 9, 2009

Pagel, david. los angeles times, “the Shapes of Powerlessness”, March 13, 2009

Schwyzer, elizabeth. the independent, “fast forward 2009”, March, 2009

Woodard,Josef. Santa Barbara news-Press,”then and now”, feb.13,2009

frank, Peter. artweek, “looky See” at otis College, october, 2008

valdez, Cynthia. the Magazine-la, Looky See:a Summer Show, october, 2008

Walsh, daniella. the oC register, Taking a Fresh Look at the Land, october 1,2006

green, tyler www.artsjournal.com , Top 10 of 2005, January 2006

frank, Peter. laWeekly, Picks of the week, august 5-11, 2005

green, tyler www.artsjournal.com, around La, June 27, 2005

Pagel, david. los angeles times, Giving Substance to a Virtual world, May 13, 2005

green, tyler www.artsjournal.com, On Miami Scope, december, 2004

green, tyler. www.artsjournal.com, Modern art notes, March 17,2004

Pagel, david. los angeles times, november, 2003

hannum, terence.www.panel-house.com, raid in Chicago,nov., 2003

artner, g. alan. Chicago tribune, all’s fair at ‘art Chicago’, May 10, 2003

Janku richard, laura. artweek, abstract-ed , May, 2003

Myers, holly. los angeles times, reinventing the wheels, feb.28, 2003

Pagel, david. los angeles times, September, 2002

Crowder, Joan. SB news-Press, Faculty on Display, May 3, 2002

Miles, Christopher. artforum, Critic’s picks, february, 2002

Pagel, david. los angeles times, Kozyrev Details the Open road at hurtling Speed,

Jan.19,2002

gipe, lawrence. the independent, On the road with Dimitri, May 31, 2001

new american Paintings: Mfa edition. 2000

Honors and Awards

2008 iv Painting Prize Castellon County Council(finalist), Spain

2005 art omi residency

2000 abrams Prize, University of California, Santa Barbara

1999 levitan fellowship, University of California, Santa Barbara

1999 KCBx graduate art fellowship, University of California, Santa Barbara

Education:

2000 University of California, Santa Barbara, Mfa in Studio arts

1997 ohio University, Bfa in Painting

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iSBn 978-0-9827872-4-3

PriCe $15.00

© 2010 david riChard ConteMPorarY, llC

130 lincoln avenue, Suite d, Santa fe, nM 87501 | p (505) 983-9555 | f (505) 983-1284

www.davidrichardContemporary.com | [email protected]

Dimitri Kozyrev "Lost Landscapes"

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