The video art piece Bathing the Red Horse offers a radical deconstruction of the iconic image from K. Petrov-Vodkin’s painting. While in classical painting the red horse symbolizes inexhaustible vitality, will, and aspiration guided by a rider, this work inverts that archetype.
In place of vast open spaces and dynamic movement, we find the confinement of concrete walls and the static nature of an empty, solitary space. The work’s protagonist is a bewildered horse, stripped of its former power, its world narrowed to the confines of a water basin. The sacred act of "bathing" transforms into a metaphor for vulnerability and the loss of agency. The appearance of a figure in a black robe—viewing the living creature merely as a piece on a squared grid—turns the horse’s existence into a cold strategic game where calculation replaces flight, and a cage replaces freedom.
The work was nominated for:
Sergey Kuryokhin Prize (2022) and Erarta Prize (2023)
In place of vast open spaces and dynamic movement, we find the confinement of concrete walls and the static nature of an empty, solitary space. The work’s protagonist is a bewildered horse, stripped of its former power, its world narrowed to the confines of a water basin. The sacred act of "bathing" transforms into a metaphor for vulnerability and the loss of agency. The appearance of a figure in a black robe—viewing the living creature merely as a piece on a squared grid—turns the horse’s existence into a cold strategic game where calculation replaces flight, and a cage replaces freedom.
The work was nominated for:
Sergey Kuryokhin Prize (2022) and Erarta Prize (2023)
2022
media art
time: 00:01:17
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media art
time: 00:01:17
.mp4
BATHING
THE RED HORSE
THE RED HORSE
