Jevgeni Zolotko

Estonian artist (born 1983)
Eesti Kunstimuuseum

Jevgeni Zolotko (1983) is an artist whose work centres on the relationship between the verbal and the material. In his site specific installations Zolotko highlights the universal traits of human nature, intergenerational sensitivity passed on through culture and religion and suppressed subconscious. The artist digs deep into the past preceding our collective consciousness. One of Zolotko's first large scale installations, “One day of the state archivist life” (2011) presents an eternal moment. The cellulose book-shaped pressed objects on shelves create a time scale that includes logs by the archivist. On the background of this static scene we can hear the whole-encompassing compositions of Bach's register. In a similar approach, a series of time-stilled moments were presented in his six-act exhibition “Things” (2012) in which Zolotko opened the attic of Tartu Art House to visitors, offering them different views on this static environment over the course of three months. Zolotko has said that he approached things and materials in that space without purpose, maintaining their incidental, neutral meaning. The only thing the artist added was a sound piece by Helena Tulve – everything else was already there. Zolotko's solo show “Lukewarm” was based on the idea of childhood being a time of purity and openness, however, the exhibition was not autobiographical. In this installation Zolotko was interested in the idea of lukewarm as in-betweenness, neutrality and balance, and transferred these notions to a light grey tonality that has become one of the signature colours in his work. Zolotko has mostly avoided explaining his work, as he dislikes the anchoring effect words have. He thinks that the overflowing mass of text that rules the world is a sign of the beginning of an apocalypse. The site-specific installation “It's time to take ceilings down” (2015) covered the wall of the exhibition space with a grey mass and consists of pulverised/ground-up books and newspapers, accompanied by a low-frequency pulsing sound. Also part of the work, are specks of paper under a magnifying glass that allows the viewer to look more closely.

Browse 3 works in the catalogue →

Contemporaries in Eesti Kunstimuuseum: Sigrid Viir · Raul Keller · Brit Pavelson · Sten Saarits · Tommy Cash

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Data from MuIS and the EKM Digital Collection. Full catalogue