Domestic Art History

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.

Domestic Art History is photo documentation of a performance in which the artist, in collaboration with his wife Elena, his son Dmitry, and their cat Dashka, created a series of remakes and cover versions of iconic classical works—from Ancient Egypt and Antiquity to Pablo Picasso and Vera Mukhina. According to Kozin, he assumed that since all people descended from Adam and Eve, it would be appropriate to present the history of art as a chronicle of family relationships. All photographs were taken in a standard two‑room apartment, without costumes or decorations, against the background of everyday life. By placing masterpieces in the context of ordinary Russian reality of the late 1990s, Kozin carried out an act of artistic appropriation. While implying a critique of institutionalized art history, this gesture is also an attempt to propose a new way of perceiving it—as a personal history.