MOSCOW.- Moscow Museum of Modern Art and ruArts Foundation present the first retrospective show of Vita Buivid, who works with photography, painting and collage. The exhibition occupying four floors of MMOMA in Ermolayevsky Pereulok brings together the artist’s projects made from the early 1990s until the present.

The exhibition features the series How I Spent My Summer, for which the artist was nominated for Kandinsky Prize in 2009, as well as Peonymania, Love Me Like I Love You, Inquisition, Nevsky Prospect, Men in a Bath, Prime Time, Fells of the Bobrov Family, For Comfort, Artek among other works.

Although she has worked in New York and Paris, Vita Buivid’s art has largely been shaped by Moscow and Saint Petersburg, between which she has been based since 1998. Sometimes blending the images and aesthetics of the two cities to create paradoxical combinations, Buivid also has entire series inspired by the atmosphere of each. Saint Petersburg works emanate coldness and alienation of the city’s classical style and the post-Soviet bohemian vibe, while the vibrant Moscow series are conceptual studies of glitz and kitsch.

Pushing the boundaries of photo based art, Vita Buivid aestheticizes casual photography, exploring the content encoded in the form and accessible on different levels of perception. Each of her series presents a social and cultural narrative, exploring various aspects of bohemian life, family conflicts, personal experiences—part of the artist’s ongoing investigation of life that converts emotional experiences into existential ones. Despite being sometimes characterized as feminist, Buivid’s art can hardly be limited to this category. Nevertheless, the collision of the male and female perspectives—be it ironic or dramatic— is one of the key elements of her art. Buivid’s recent projects also offer a reflection on our time, reacting to various historical and political events. Over 30 works included in the show present an in-depth analysis of what it means to be human.

Vita Buivid was born in Dnepropetrovsk and has been working in photography since the late 1980s. In 1994, the artist received a grant from the circ Bureau of russian culture in Amsterdam to work on a project exploring the influence of Dutch art on russian culture. With a grant from the rutgers university she went to New York city to work in fashion photography.

Having returned to russia, she continued working for fashion magazines. In 2000, she worked in Paris on the project Paris. red at the invitation of the Paris city Hall.