STILL LIFE | IVAN KOCHKAREV

Solo Exhibition | LUCH Gallery
8 March – 10 April 2025

LUCH Gallery presents personal exhibition by Ivan Kochkarev.

We are used to the fact that Still Life is the English equivalent of dead nature. But initially it is a quiet, frozen life. Artist Ivan Kochkarev recreates the atmosphere of a summer cottage that has fallen asleep for the winter.

"The oarlocks creaked, the women's squeals died down, the summer residents went to the city, leaving silence and sad furniture in the abandoned houses. The STILL LIFE exhibition is dedicated to the exciting event when the Squirrel sneaks into one of the summer cottages and discovers the remains of a farewell dinner – half-eaten Dumplings. Dumplings, according to Gilles Deleuze (the book "The Fold. Leibniz and the Baroque") is not only a hyperfold of matter, soul and the World, but also the Garden of Forking Paths, that is, Destiny – in its baroque understanding.

The Squirrel glowed. The squirrel, according to Scandinavian mythology, runs along the trunk of the sacred ash tree Yggdrasil: up and down, between heaven and earth, paradise and hell. It unites the Angel and Orpheus, and this is precisely the amplitude of the pendulum of the soul of the artist, seeking inspiration and despising the middle way. As Grebenshchikov sings: "Today you are Francis Bacon, and tomorrow – Andrey Rublev."

When I was 5, my brother's friend Zhenya Varzar (they were 7) invited us to visit. It was in Riga, on Kirov Street, now Elizabetes, in a house built by Mikhail Eisenstein, the director's father, in an incredible esoteric Art Nouveau style. Having led my brother and me to his room, Zhenya said: "Guys (I had never heard this word and felt like a member of a secret society), now I'll show you space!"

We sat down on a sagging sofa, Zhenya turned off the light. The room was separated from the kitchen by a moth-eaten carpet. Countless holes turned into myriads of stars, and we found ourselves in the center of the Universe. Such a strong metaphysical experience never happened again in my subsequent life. The treasure of that moment has remained with me forever."

IVAN KOCHKAREV