Vika Begalska

Vika Begalska was born in 1975 inDnepropetrovsk.
She graduated the Kharkov State Academy of Design and Art.
She’s participated in special projects at the first, second and third Moscow biennales (2005, 2007, 2009); her works are held in private collections as well as at the MAAC foundation ( Brussels) and the Matrix Art Project ( Brussels).
Begalskaya lives and works in Moscow.

Pythians

The “psychological model” proposed by Rosalind Krauss when video was taking its first steps as the keystone of a new art form might have lost its universality, but it hasn’t lost its validity. Vika Begalska’s Pythians appears to fully fall into this model as an example of psychological introspection. Hiding behind the video camera and not in front of it, Begalska, as Freud would mark, invests two young girls with libido — here, the object-libido is preferred to the ego-libido of the self-portrait. The act of watching is under investigation here — the slow motion is a deliberate choice to better take in the scene.
The format applied is the one pertaining art since its very origins, voyeuristic pleasure. Accordingly, the two young girls are blatant re-enactments of Lolita. Probably less malicious than Nabokov’s heroine, still pregnant with sensuality, their candor is far from pure innocence. White and red are the dominant colors. Even the Coca-Cola writing is functional to this dichotomy. As a matter of fact, the use of such a sign has no pretentions of being a critique of globalization. On the other hand, Begalska explains, it is simply beautiful to look at since it’s in perfect harmony with the rest of the composition she has staged. Globalization here is not political, it is anthropological. The two girls are universal characters: modern nymphs armed with cotton candy, that balance of innocence and experience, of white and red. A stain of red blood on the white snow.