M and Zh (M and F)
Alexander Lyashko, New Blockheads Cooperative
- Category
- MediumColor photographic print, eight parts
- Dimensionseach 30 × 40 cm
- Сollection
- Inventory numberМСИГ_ОФ_171_Ф_24/1–24/3
- Acquired from
- Year of acquisition2025
Keywords
About the work
The performance was conceived and enacted by two members of the New Blockheads, Vladimir Kozin and Vadim Flyagin, and the photographs were made by Alexander Lyashko in the photo studio at Borey Gallery (St. Petersburg). According to Lyashko, about six shots were selected from the session, in which the two nude performers explored the nature of human anatomical differences. The artists approached the comparison between male and female quite literally. A common device in the practice of the New Blockheads, nudity can also be seen in their performances Vanka‑Vstanka (1999) and 100 Ways to Use the Mass Media (2001).
Although members of the group were strongly influenced by Joseph Beuys’ exhibition Inner Mongolia at the State Russian Museum (1992), they only had a vague and mythologized idea of Western actionism. At that time, St. Petersburg artists were entirely unfamiliar with the feminist performances of Carolee Schneemann or VALIE EXPORT. The plasticity of the two bodies in Lyashko’s photographs invokes associations with sculptures in St. Petersburg parks, such as those in the Summer Garden or the Kirov Central Park of Culture and Recreation. The pair also take on the roles of circus clowns: Vladimir Kozin is taller and significantly larger than Vadim Flyagin, who appears fragile beside him. M and F is part of Central Russian Elevated Blockheadedness, the group’s larger project which characterizes their mature artistic period (1998–2001). Based on Lyashko’s photo session, a stop‑motion film titled Male—Female—Peep—Show was shown in the competition program at the International Extra Short Film Festival in Novosibirsk in June 2001.
