Amelia Johnson Contemporary announces Konstantin Bessmertny: BESTIARUM, a powerful exhibition of small paintings and three-dimensional work. Bessmertny’s latest exhibition takes its name from a compendium of beasts that was particularly popular in England and France around the 12th century. The illustrated volumes described various animals, birds and even fantastical creatures and were usually accompanied by a moral lesson. In modern times, artists such as Henri de Toulouse- Lautrec and Saul Steinberg have produced their own bestiaries. Here Konstantin Bessmertny presents his own Bestiarum: a collection of 20 small oil on canvas works under the collective series title “Portraits of the Rich and Famous” and a powerful three-dimensional work.
These small, intimate portraits of politicians, philosophers, world leaders, film stars, who are recognizable and famous, are presented in monochrome and colour, perhaps exploring an unique, mundane aspect of their lives or a character trait that the person is not known for. In objectifying his subject matter, the artist is asking his audience to look at these personalities in a new light, perhaps to empathise with them, perhaps to ridicule them, but also to question and possibly rethink every preconceived notion that has previously been synonymous with this person’s fame. So here we have “Napoleon on Elba’ – rosy cheeked, enormously fat and healthy – a reference to the amazing living he experienced whilst in captivity. Here we have a Richter-esque Marilyn figure – ghostly and taking the stage in front of the President.
In contrast to the small oils is the artist’s titular work “Bestiarum”, a life size lion, Asian-esque, carved from wood and painted over with scenes and tracts of text from mediaeval life. Here Bessmertny depicts an imagined world populated with fantastical creatures and mythological people, moral stories and anecdotes for a twenty first century audience. This parallel universe that the artist creates is made all the more powerful by the juxtaposition of these simplistic, painterly oils with this giant lion, whose carved features terrify and mesmerize yet who draws the audience further into this parallel world to uncover the hidden messages contained within these works.
Bessmertny is a creature of boundaries between times, cultures and places. The effect is not lost on his works, which gleefully portray challenges of basic, almost universally accepted understandings of zeitgeist, history, and its heroes. Through his work Konstantin Bessmertny affords the viewer a delicious glimpse into a world that could so nearly exist and demonstrates, yet again, why he is one of the most exciting artists working in Asia today.
About the Artist
Born in Blagoveshchensk, Russia, across the Amur River from Heihe, China, Bessmertny has spent the last seventeen years living in Macau’s Special Administrative Region. During that time he has risen to become one of its foremost artistic ambassadors, having represented the enclave in its premier pavilion in the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007. His works are held in collections that include the Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Macau, and the Standard Chartered Bank of Hong Kong; and have been exhibited in Museums that include the Museum of Contemporary Art, Fukuoka, Japan; the Museum of Art, Macau; and the Museum of Contemporary Arts, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
