Nikita Seleznev
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Nikita Seleznev
Karate Poetry, 2020–2021
Concrete, acrylic, found objects (hoodie, balaclava, ring, zip, armchair), metal,
3D print (biodegradable plastic), plasma screens, video (15’ 53”, 4’ 48”)
Dimensions variable
Courtesy of the artist, MYTH Gallery (St. Petersburg),
Sergey Limonov, and Denis Khimilyayne
Nikita Seleznev’s works meet the highest standards of international multimedia art: boldly using any material, from found objects and images to words and video. Seleznev’s approach to mass media imagery builds on the tradition associated with the Pictures Generation (Cindy Sherman, Sherrie Levine, Robert Longo), who were first described as a unified artistic phenomenon by American critic and curator Douglas Crimp in the late 1970s. Today, Seleznev’s “allies” in terms of aesthetics include important contemporary artists such as Jordan Wolfson (USA), Anna Uddenberg (Sweden), and Jose Dávila (Mexico).
In A Voyage on the North Sea: Art in the Age of the Post-Medium Condition, influential art theorist Rosalind Krauss ties the arrival of the new era to the figure of Belgian conceptual artist Marcel Broodthaers, as Broodthaers rejected the idea of the specificity of medium and the distinction between unique and reproducible objects. “The onset of higher orders of technology—robot, computer—allows us [. . .] to grasp the inner complexity of the mediums those techniques support,” Krauss points out. However, Seleznev’s practice, which can be described as the continuous translation of images from one “state of matter” to another, focuses not so much on the meticulous study of the medium of sculpture as on the process of translation itself.
Seleznev’s “flaneur’s perspective” is similar to Baudelaire’s, but with digital content in place of shop windows, galleries, and railroad stations. He sources his imagery from the Internet, picking out visual and communicative “refrains” from Instagram, Facebook, and Telegram. Photographs, posts, and comments that recur in online communities—lifestyle and street fashion channels, accounts of contemporary pop-culture figures like Billie Eilish or Tyler, the Creator—become prototypes for plastic form. Translated into the language of sculpture, they present themselves as archetypes. As in any translation, something inevitably gets lost, but Seleznev’s aim is not to be faithful to the image or to quote the original. He wants to convey the authentic emotional tension associated with it and capture the sentiment with the utmost accuracy. Working with a new aesthetic canon, he explores youth culture with its focus on rebellion, sexuality, and aggression. Hence the elements of “protest uniform” in his semi-abstract sculptures: balaclavas, hoodies, headphones.
Karate poetry is a balanced image and a neologism that Seleznev has coined to describe the “language” spoken by Internet users. Their communication is based on short, striking messages and attraction. To some, karate is nothing but a series of punches, while to others it’s a martial art. The same applies to poetry: pompous phrases in dusty corners to some, and pure transgression to others. Another impulse for the project is fan translations of popular songs, which are found on the Internet.
However, the zeitgeist keeps changing, and karate poetry will become history, just like skaldic poetry. For this reason, Seleznev’s “memorials” are as photogenic, as perfectly designed as can be, and are made with reintegration into the Internet in mind.
IV