START POINT PRIZE – Prize for emerging artists

Victor Yudaev’s installations resist any attempt at interpretation. Despite this, they contain something which continues to attract and provoke. It is perhaps their very intangibility, which, together with the large amount of detail, acts on the senses and provokes the viewer to try to understand. The installation Enormous Room is exactly what the title says – an enormous room. It is full of things and objects, the majority of which are made by the artist himself. The impression strikes a balance between a shop interior, a room and an artist’s studio. The modular cube form provides a utilitarian function as an armchair, a bookshelf or a pedestal, while at the same time the room is a kind of stockroom where the wooden cubes are piled. In between there is a plethora of sculptural ideas on view, mostly made of the cheapest materials from a supermarket – a luxurious Havana cigar “smoked“ by a carton of milk, an instant noodle soup broken into pieces so that it looks like a manual from IKEA. A real one lies on the table near a portrait of Woody Allen. The viewer is constantly on the alert, nothing is certain and there is always something new to see. The room as a landscape, as a (self) portrait. (rv)