Alexei Tregubov

tregubov Born in 1978. Graduated from the Moscow State Academic Art Institute In Memory of 1905 and the V.I. Surikov Moscow State Academic Art Institute. Solo shows at Galerie Polysemie (Marseille), Korjaamo Galleria (Helsinki); Rooms (Moscow, all in 2010).

The Who is It? project
In art history the mirror image was never an artistic method per se. Mirrors are famously thought of as the enemy of art, with their repetitions, multiplications, likenesses and illusions standing in opposition to the true purposes of art. But in Aleksei Tregubov’s project the mirror produces critical thinking rather than repetitions or illusions. It ceases to play its usual role – the place of the double is now occupied by the outline of a figure who is absent or has vanished into the mirror, as well as by the viewer looking into this mirrored figure, and finally by other reflected people. Both the object and subject become reflections of each other and in each other. Here there is no point of reference, no horizon, no orientation. It is a model of anthropomorphic forms that are eternally distant from each other, of mirrored images that shimmer across our television screens, like the simulacras described by Baudrillard. The project includes 45 works of oil paint on mirrors (reproductions of photographs on political and social themes taken from newspapers), and also features sculptures made of interconnected silhouettes cut from a stainless steel “supermirror.” Some of the sculptures are the silhouettes of people famous in Russian political and social life. They are connected in such a way that from various angles they reflect light and viewers, and the figures are reflected in each other.

Алексей Трегубов. Из проекта Кто это? 2012. © Автор Alexei Tregubov. From the Who is It? project. 2012. © Artist