Throughout the 20th century, the model for understanding spacial dimensions has been continuously changing. Euclidean geometry and its related three-dimensional buildup of a picture provoked questioning and doubt, if not outright protest. The introduction of time as a category or co-ordinate of multi-dimensional space leads to new, complicated visual design laws and simultaneously opens up new possibilities for artistic development.

The space of the artwork stops being objectively intact and the subject's emotions no longer remain merely internalized feelings. Areas of interest within contemporary art include new ideas and terminology related to mathematics, philosophy, and psychology. This type of art changes objects and words little by little into meaningful symbols, a unified text into fragments and contextual content, and also changes the dynamics and relationships both between the museum and its art works, as well as between viewers and the artist.

Balancing on the border between new realities and traditions, the collage format remains a conduit of avant-garde ideas from suprematism to pop art, from one-dimensional images to plastic movement or performance.

It looks like there is no area that cannot be examined with the help of the fragmentary imagery of a collage, which by nature is deprived of unification and a centralized meaning. Collages in all of its various formats (photo-montage, computer graphics and assemblage) permit the artist to informatively and visually saturate the represented image, leaving it open for dialogue and multiple interpretations.


THE PROJECT

Bee Flowers' project, "Grand Illusions," was initiated by his interest in public and social phenomena and with it, he converts everyday life into meaningful symbols and semantic spacial structures.

The artist was born in The Netherlands and his attraction to Russian literature and music first brought him to the Russian department of Amsterdam University, and at the end of the 1980's, caused a desire to travel to the Soviet Union.

Bee Flowers saw a country the socio-political structures of which had transformed the nation's image into an elaborate myth. The speed of the changes of that history and ideology were submitted to, allowed the artist to not only become an enraptured witness of epochal transformations, but also to connect his life to Russia for a long time. His interest in sociology, history and comparative religions determined the main tendencies of Bee Flower's artistic activity.


THE ILLUSION OF TRADITION

The artist solidifies evolutionary dynamics related to the societal state in his own, unique manner, and therefore, only after careful examination does it become apparent that he is actually continuing along the developmental path of Western European pop-art. The artist permits himself to use only the technologies within pop-art that disclose how to expose the interpretations of mass consciousness, which is predominantly through repeated and flashing images; both those that are common today and those already fading from mass consciousness.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Bee Flowers puts together a manipulative space and a sensual expectation for interpreting the subject matter. By gathering fragments of the illusory version of everyday life and by placing the resulting collages in a museum context, the artist, using traditional presentational elements, jolts the viewers and involves them in an historic transformation by offering them not a myth, but rather its underlying meaning.

Heroes cannot return…Yuri Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova were bright examples of both male and female cultural icons representing an entire country and a lost epoch. We have accepted society's changes in meanings and trajectories.


SEMANTIC ILLUSIONS

The text within collages does not actually transmit any direct information, but rather is a fragmented set of hints. Bee Flowers is very sensitive to wording. You see the comparison of the two epochs not only through visual references, but also through semantics, including the structuring of archetypal slogans.

The totalitarian epoch (by nature) required the entire community's participation. The word "Youth," when reiterated and accentuated in a familiar typeface, is instantly recognizable as coming from the cover of a once very widely read journal. Types of almost romantic illusions were completely woven into all activities of the masses. Some examples we see are: "Thanks to the great Stalin for our happy childhood!" or "Life is better and life is more joyful now," and "Go forward with determination." And, who could forget "Everybody to the elections," "Yes, yes, yes," "All rise," and "Enthusiastic and continuous applause." Several of these phrases can identify an entire epoch, for those who understand and remember them.

Today, we see other slogans into which we read a different meaning. They are bright, brief, simple, superficial, and ready- to- prompt- at- any- time- of- the- day slogans that are meant not for society as a whole, but rather for individuals, who can each on his own be carried away by the carnival-like revelry of advertising billboards with catchy terms such as "super," "give in to shopping," "Miss Tourism," "sales," "round the clock." The personal pronouns 'we,' 'us,' and 'all' have disappeared, while the social density gradually thins, and a sense of emptiness takes presence in more than just a culturological context. The lyrics of rock band "Leningrad," remind us that "no one is sorry for anyone, not for him, not for you and not for me." These words are already shot with loneliness, and drenched with both fear and a weak-willed readiness before some automated sacrifice.

As usual, Bee Flowers, while exposing societal problems, is purposefully standing aside. His task is to allow for everyone else to speak. The artist attempts to avoid direct interpretations of the contents of his works, and to permit the viewers to develop their own associative connections.


Irina Rekhovskikh, curator