09 November 2022 The exhibition presents in Italy the work of Victoria Lomasko, since 2011 a careful witness and reporter of the social and political history of Russia. Her graphic research gives an account of the contradictions and criticality of her country, between anti-Putin demonstrations and attention to rebels and the oppressed.
On 11 November, the Museo di Santa Giulia in Brescia will open the first Italian solo exhibition of the Russian dissident artist Victoria Lomasko (Serpukhov, 1978). The Last Soviet Artist (until 8 January 2023), curated by Elettra Stamboulis, is presented as part of the Festival of Peace and is the third stage of a research conducted by Fondazione Brescia Musei on the relations between contemporary art and social issues, which has already resulted in the exhibitions dedicated to Zehra Doğan (2019) and Badiucao (2021).
The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue published by Skira. Since 2011, Victoria Lomasko has been a careful witness and reporter of Russia's social and political history. Her graphic research gives an account of the contradictions and criticalities of her country, which she was forced to leave in March 2022: the subjects range from anti-Putin demonstrations to the portrait of the deepest Russia, that of the poor and forgotten, to which she grants an unprecedented political space of representation. Even before the conflict in Ukraine, the decision had already been taken to exhibit the artist's more than ten-year-long investigation into the lives of those excluded from the system, and the invasion confirmed the urgency of giving visibility to his research. The artist will also spend a period of residency in the spaces of Brescia in order to create site-specific works, dedicated to the tragic events of recent months.
Lomasko followed in the footsteps of her father, a metalworker who secretly acted as an artist provocateur. After graduating in Graphic Arts from Moscow State University in 2003, she embarked on a path dedicated to contesting abuses of power and social injustice, through the tools of drawing and performance, which in her practice border on activism. Anglo-Saxon critics consider her the most important Russian graphic social artist and the documentary The Last Soviet Artist, directed by musician and composer Geraint Rhys, was made about her. Her books have been very successful in Europe and in 2018 the graphic novel Other Russias received a special mention from the Pushkin House Book Prize. The Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid acquired part of her archive and she was a guest artist at Documenta this year.
