Sveta Mordovskaya’s presentation for Paris Internationale presents photographs and two sculptures. The photographs, taken from her adolescence and childhood in Siberia, are nailed and taped to the wall with adornments, collage, and mixed-media assemblages. However, this work is not made as autobiography. Blown-up larger than their original size, the works resist classification as a mere photograph, readymade, collage, or sculpture. The content of the photographs appear straightforward, but remain uneasy for public consumption: snapshots of the teenage artist amongst teammates and friends, and the artist posing for the camera, almost knowing her photograph’s future purpose. In all of Mordovskaya’s work, appropriated and discarded media hold potential for material animacy. It’s as though Mordovskaya has given her young self an exhibition. Here, the teenage Mordovskaya is in a state of playful flux, but she is not yet ‘the artist.’ The works and their collaged elements are treated the same, wherein Mordovskaya uses her past as raw material. Disconnected from the memories of her youth, these images carry the potential for aesthetic growth and transformation.

Sveta Mordovskaya (b. Ulan-Ude, RU, 1989) lives and works in Zurich. Selected solo presentations include Kunsthaus Biel Centre d’art Bienne (Biel, CH), King’s Leap (New York, NY), Weiss Falk (Zurich/Basel, CH), Kevin Space (Vienna, AT), Cherish (Geneva, CH) and Plymouth Rock (Zurich, CH). Recent group exhibitions include Beacon (Munich, DE), Kunsthalle Zurich (Zurich, CH), Sentiment (Zurich, CH), Weiss Falk at Eva Presenhuber (New York, NY), Dortmunder Kunstverein (Dortmund, DE), C L E A R I N G (Brussels, BE), Sperling (Munich, DE), Loggia (Vienna, AT), Kim? Contemporary Art Centre (Riga, LV), Fri Art Kunsthalle (Fribourg, CH), Longtang (Zurich, CH), Kunsthaus Pasquart (Biel/Bienne, CH), LISTE Art Fair Basel 2019 (Basel, CH), Kunsthaus Glarus (Glarus, CH), Galerie Francesca Pia (Zurich, CH) and Swiss Institute (New York, NY).