Curated by: Andrei Bartenev

The Moscow Museum of Modern Art is proud to introduce Perkussiya, a solo exhibition by Vova Perkin. The extensive retrospective, assembled from the artist’s major painting series, showcases more than 160 works from private and museum collections created between 2016 and 2023. The exhibition’s title refers to the image of the fictional duck Perkussiya, featured in the central picture of the project. It sets the rhythm of flight for the whole flock, rushing for art experiences from Maikop to Moscow.

Since childhood, Vova has been engaged in monumental painting — he used to cover the walls of houses and land structures, the hulls of trolleybuses and electric trains with intricate characters of his own isomyths. Following his meeting with A. Bartenev in 2016, the artist switched to painting on canvases, while maintaining the large format of his works. Vova Perkin, who is now the leader of the Our Utopia art group, maximizes his visual search in the Perkinnale of Contemporary Art. He aspires to attract optimistic artists of different generations to the peculiarities of his drawing practices.

Through performance art, art travel, photography, poetry, art knitting, ceramics, etchings, sculpture, carpet weaving — manifesting himself as a multimedia consciousness, Vova Perkin always returns to painting on canvas. With acrylic paints and markers, spray paint and tempera, he takes the archaic technique of letterpress painting to the next level. Juggling art-punk symbols and utopian philosophy, chaotically scattering scraps of text across the field of paintings Vova is reinterpreting what is painted.

The retrospective exhibition at MMOMA reveals different periods and stages of Vova Perkin’s work and gives an opportunity to trace the process of formation and the culmination of the unique author’s style — Perkinism. The exposition consists of several thematic sections covering the period of creative activity of the artist and his associates in 160 works from private and museum collections: AZ Art, Mira Creative Community, Sergey Kuryokhin Museum, RuArts Foundation and others.
The Perkussiya project is a part of MMOMA’s program that aims to integrate the initiatives supporting young artists. As part of this program, MMOMA provides museum space for established artists to pursue their ideas. Over the years, several young authors, including many young artists who have become bright actors in the contemporary art scene, have shown their works in this project.

About the Artist:

Vova Perkin was born in 1995 in Maikop. He started his creative path with graffiti in 2008. Founder of the Perkinism trend (2017), of the group of artists Our Utopia, and the National Perkinnale of Contemporary Art (2019). In 2020 he wrote and published his first poem Tower on Reconstruction. Participant of major festivals, awards and exhibitions: Zverev Art Prize (2021), Sergey Kuryokhin International Festival (2016), Archstoyanie Detskoe festival (2020), Cosmoscow international fair (2018, 2019), etc. He was ranked among the most promising Russians under 30, in the Art category of Forbes Russia in 2021. As a guest artist Perkin collaborated with major brands (Cartier, Ray Ban, NYX Professional Makeup). Vova also curates annual exhibitions of his team and guest artists. He works in various techniques: painting, graphics, soft sculpture, photography, performance.