Igor & Svetlana Kopystiansky

Igor & Svetlana Kopystiansky Cv

Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky have collaborated and co-authored many important and widely exhibited works, such as their major video installations Incidents (1996/7) and Fog (1999/2000). At the same time they have their own independent practices, and have developed distinctive languages and bodies of works. Their work is rooted in a deep knowledge and understanding of historical practices, such as constructivism and avant-garde theatre, but is also highly poetical and playful. Many of their recent collaborative works, realised as video, photography or slide projection, deal with the issue of time, and often present a powerful tension between two visions and trajectories, which can hardly be unified in an individual object or view. Drama and play are set up with the simplest devises, while conceptual strategies are perfectly harmonised with a strong fascination for the visual and tactile qualities of everyday objects and encounters.

Igor & Svetlana Kopystiansky live and work in New York.
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Igor & Svetlana Kopystiansky Press

Igor & Svetlana Kopystiansky Exhibitions

Igor & Svetlana Kopystiansky Public Exhibitions

Double fiction / Fiction double
Musée d'Art Moderne de Saint-Etienne Métropole, Saint-Etienne
6 February - 18 April
Curated by Lorand Hegyi
Musée d'Art Moderne de Saint-Etienne Métropole

The installations in this project represent a body of work that explores the temporal flow of everyday activity in and around the streets of New York City. Through the moving image, Svetlana and Igor Kopystiansky have pursued a rigorous inquiry into the perception of time and place. By using as a subject oft-ignored objects in today's world they render the Duchampian notion of the found object into a playful discourse.

The exhibition will feature pieces from the last twelve years that now form a significant body of work included in museum collections such as The Whitney Museum of American Art New York, MoMA New York, Tate Modern London, MMK Frankfurt and AGNSW Sydney, Australia. These major works include 'Incidents', 1996 – 97, 'The Day Before Tomorrow', 1999, 'Fog', 2000 and the recent installation 'Crossroad', 2009. The show will also include a film programme of works based on reflection of methods and ideas of early avant-garde; '16X', 'Steps sole sound', 'White Line' and 'Architecton' from the collection of the Centre Pompidou Paris.

An illustrated catalogue will accompany the exhibition featuring contributions by Lorand Hegyi, the Director of the Musée d"Art Moderne de Saint-Étienne, Philippe-Alain Michaud, Chief Curator for the films at the Mnam Centre Pompidou, and John G. Hanhardt, Consulting Senior curator, Film & Video Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Igor & Svetlana Kopystiansky Catalogues and Editions

Igor & Svetlana Kopystiansky Images

Igor & Svetlana Kopystiansky Contact

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