Vera Barkalova (born Moscow). Graduated from the Moscow Institute of Television and Radio Broadcasting Ostankino (course of A. Gordon) and the School of Photography and Multimedia. (workshop of Igor Mukhin). Works in a creative duet with Ekaterina Kovalenko. The main topics with which Vera works: corporeality and sensuality, through which communication with nature, self-perception takes place; reflections on the perversion and limitations of society, taboo and stigmatization; research on pseudophilosophy and marginalization. Vera, together with Katya, are engaged in the creation of total installations using various media: sculpture, photo, video, sound. The interest lies in the field of materials, technologies; their holistic combination and integration into space. Vera lives and works in Moscow.
Publications:
“Special issue. Photobook in Russia”. “Pilgrim”. Metenkov House, Yekaterinburg, 2016.
“Itch”. Cosmos Arles books. Arles, France, 2016.
“Pilgrim”. ViennaPhotoBookFestival, 2014.
“Photo and Video”, 2009.
- 2016 – Special Prize. “New Moscow”. Youth in the 21st century, Kaunas, Lithuania.
Residence. Brewhouse. - 2014 – Winner. “Habitat”. Youth in the 21st century, Kaunas, Lithuania.
Personal exhibitions:
- 2018 – “Elusive Beauty”. Apothecary garden of the Botanical Garden, Tropical Garden. Moscow, Russia.
- 2018 – “Young but not broken”. Vzlet project, VDNKh. Moscow, Russia.
- 2017 – Trauma and Rebirth. House on the Embankment. Moscow, Russia.
- 2016 – “ATOPOS”. Brewhouse project. Moscow, Russia.
- 2016 – “Don’t stumble buddy, this is the morgue’s doorstep.” Gallery “Electrozavod”. Moscow, Russia.
Selected group exhibitions:
- 2018 – “One, two, three, four, five – I’m going to look for myself”. Archstoyanie. Nikola-Lenivets, Russia.
- 2017 – “Hurray! Sculpture”. Central Exhibition Hall MANEZH. Saint-Petersburg, Russia.
- 2016 – “Heartburn”. Gallery “Electrozavod”. Moscow, Russia.
- 2016 – “Ten Years of the Rodchenko School”. MAMM. Moscow, Russia.
- 2016 – “Joy Bar.” V Moscow International Biennale for Young Art. CTI Factory. Moscow, Russia.
- 2016 – “Heliogabalus”. V Moscow International Biennale for Young Art. Center for Contemporary Art WINZAVOD. Moscow, Russia.
- 2016 – “Time” Art Park “Symbol”. V Moscow International Biennale for Young Art. Gallery “Triumph”. Moscow, Russia.
- 2016 – “Ground-ZIN. The book, which has no”. Gallery “On Sandy”. Moscow, Russia.
- 2016 – “Overripe fingers like a”. Gallery where. Moscow, Russia.
- 2015 – “What can I say, when you have nothing to say”. Drummer. Moscow, Russia.
- 2015 – “Blogs for the future”. Library №8 named after F.M. Dostoevsky. Moscow, Russia.
- 2014 – “Radar”. Galerie Hilger. Vienna, Austria.
- 2014 – “A Rumor of Angels”. IV Moscow International Biennale for Young Art. Moscow, Russia.
- 2014 – “VDNH crater 2”. Rodchenko Moscow School of Photography and Multimedia. Moscow, Russia.
- 2014 – “Student Exhibition”. Goblen. Paris, France.
- 2013 – [“Un] moved”. Art Arsenal. Kiev, Ukraine.
- 2013 – “Storyboard”. Home Cinema. Saint-Petersburg, Russia.
- 2013 – “VDNH funnel”. Rennes. France.
- 2013 – “Farm”. Silver camera. Moscow, Russia.
- 2013 – “Scum”. Gallery “Electrozavod”. Moscow, Russia.
All author's works
In this series, the author explores representations of corporeality in the contemporary world. These images are hypertrophied and at the same time realistic, allegorical and literal. Barkalova is interested in the factuality of the image “here and now” and its existence without any evaluation.
Series
The notion of “rituality”, meaning an established traditional order of action, often endowed with a sacred meaning, is given a specific interpretation in today’s globalized society. The cyclic nature of rituality, a belief in the symbolic meaning accumulated by ritual gesture and its demonstrative nature are refracted and reinterpreted in postmodernist culture. Series of Vera Barkalova and Ekaterina Kovalenko are not so much an attempt to analyze, but to creatively reinterpret this notion, demonstrating its variability. Vera puts it this way: “The concept of ‘rituality’ is anchored in our cultural code as a primordial experience, an unfinished process and its cyclic nature. We decode the cultural code with the help of visual art and extract from it digital time (here and now) and the state of being (timeless)”.
