Aivazovsky

Since the late 1980s, Vladimir Kozin has been developing his personal artistic language, creating assemblages from found objects. From 1996 to 2001, he was a member of the New Blockheads Cooperative, which largely defined the strategy of the artist’s practice, wherein the postmodernist appropriation and citation of classical works can be considered a characteristic method.

Kozin has a particular interest in the artist’s book as a medium. Aivazovsky is an album of reproductions of works by Ivan Aivazovsky (1955 edition) with Kozin’s censorial insertions. By cutting out or covering the sea with tracing paper in each of the paintings Kozin removed the key element of Russia’s pre‑eminent marine painter’s art, thus inviting the viewer to reconsider the familiar image and its role in the perception of artistic heritage.