Specter

Irina Korina is an artist and set designer and a sophisticated producer of total installations assembled from parts of the everyday environment and echoes of collective memory. Her first major project, Urangst, was presented in 2003 at XL Gallery. Korina carefully directs the constructed environment, building a dramaturgy and systematically immersing the audience in a surrealistic whirlwind of sensations and emotions. The main working material is ubiquitous cheap finishing textures, fabrics, tablecloths and oilcloths, plastic cladding, siding, Styrofoam, and so on. Spectacular garish ornamentation and kitsch embellishment play an important role. Korina's installations are full of carnival‑like madness and a deliberate pretentiousness of various aesthetics.

Spectrum (2013) is one of a number of bas‑relief objects that were created outside a series and are characterized by their compact size. The multilayered structure of the work is filled with references to football themes and national motifs. The object is assembled from fragments of the club symbols of Zenit, Arsenal, and Lokomotiv, which are intertwined with traditional Russian scarves. Irina Korina offers a reflection on the concept of national pride: its nature, origins, and how pride “in our own” transforms into hostility and aggression.