Working across sculpture, painting, photography, drawing, artist’s books, and film, Andro Wekua creates intricate environments in which the various elements form unexpected and often dream-like relationships. The artist’s first solo exhibition in Russia features a new project specifically conceived for the West Gallery of Garage Museum of Contemporary Art.
Dolphin in the Fountain opens with the eight-minute film By the Window (2008), featuring what appears to be a teenager sitting in a room with his feet on a table. Images of the sea, buildings (presumably, from Wekua’s native Sukhumi), and fragments of films with silhouetted people play in the background, accompanied by dull thuds. Occasionally, the room fills with neon light from outside, as if Blade Runner’s Los Angeles of 2019 is beyond the window. The teenager is one of Wekua’s characters: a life-size mannequin that seems as if it can perform basic movements, yet remains still. Like most of Wekua’s sculptures, the boy’s pose indicates distance, a detachment from the world around him.
