Sesow and Ellyn exhibit at MISP museum in St. Petersburg, Russia (2018-2019)

Grotesque in art will be shown through the prism of more than 100 artists from Russia, France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, United Kingdom, USA, China and other countries. Is grotesque an artistic paradox, phantasmagoria of imagery or an idiosyncratic, exaggerated perception?

The project curators encourage the visitors to trace modifications that the grotesque topic has undergone throughout centuries, to see the legacy of, say, Bosch, Arcimboldo, or Goya emerge in the 20th century art. How can nightmare and monstrosity be transformed into the beauty of artistic forms, and an ideal turn into spiritual brokenness?

300 oeuvres, including paintings, graphics, sculpture, objects, installations, video art, photography, collage by renowned masters and young ambitious artists, will occupy the entire space of the Museum. Four storeys of exhibition halls plus flights of stairs, the inner yard and even the adjacent Griboedov canal embankment will become an artistic Labyrinth of Grotesque. Visitors will be attracted and invited to participate in the unique monstrosity festival by a peculiar PapaWok public-art object floating in Griboedov canal right in front of the Museum entrance.

The Project being essentially interactive, the visitors will be engaged in master classes and performances. Apart from the exhibition, there will be films, shows and theatre presentations in the inner yard and exhibition halls, as well as a series of lectures on grotesque and satire in art, seen from a broad perspective.

The exhibition includes artworks of Vladimir Kustov, Vika Begalska and Alexander Vilkin.