Sergei Shutov, b. 1955

Sergei Shutov is one of the most notable figures of the contemporary Russian art scene. He is famous not just for painting and graphic works, but as the creator of objects and installations. He is a musician, action figure, video artist, the first Russian VJ and a pioneer of the theory and practice of the new media in Russian art. A measure of his success in the art world was his participation in the Russian Pavilion at the Venice Biennial in 2001. In 2002 he was nominated for a State Prize of the Russian Federation.

Sergei Shutov’s works are represented in the collections of the best Russian museums – the State Tretiakov Gallery, the Russian Museum, the A S Pushkin Museum of Representative, and also in many private and corporate collections in Russia, Great Britain, France, Denmark and other countries.

*The offered lot is signed 1993 but in reality the work was created in 1988. The date, as the artist considered at the time, formed part of the structure of the work bearing coded meaning. At the end of the 1980s Shutov used at one time or another as parts of a “fictional date”: friends’ addresses, fragments of telephone numbers, friends’ dates of birth etc. The painting “Gisele” (1989) is dated1923 in a similar manner (published in the journal Stolitsa, No 30, 1991, third cover page); as is “Proof of Identity” (1988) which bears the date 1936 (published in the catalogue of the travelling exhibition “10+10. Contemporary Soviet and American Artists”. Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth, 1989).