11.11.2022–31.01.2023
"Distant Posterity"
Priska Pasquer Gallery, Cologne, Germany

Priska Pasquer is delighted to be hosting for the first time the Ukrainian artist Aljoscha. In his solo exhibition “Distant Posterity,” he uses new paintings, installations, and sculptures to depict a future vision of the world. It’s populated by new species of creatures that have overcome hatred and violence.
The fantastical objects, sculptures, and landscapes appear strangely weightless and sublime. They set the scene for the unknown, the indescribable that Aljoscha tries to fathom. Driven by the question of how we see our biological future, he incorporates philosophical, ethical, and scientific questions into his artistic exploration. Against this backdrop, he’s developed an anticipatory theory of evolution called “bioism” – a manifesto under which Aljoscha subsumes his artistic work.

Utopian creatures
Having started out in painting, Aljoscha’s work process begins with oil paintings and filigree drawings. He then transfers the visual idea into space and develops a three-dimensional piece. Sometimes it seems to grow out of the canvas in a tangle, at times it meanders through the room like an installation, or alternatively it may unfold a sculptural presence as a creature-like formation. Although the objects’ artificiality is apparent from the use of acrylic, silicone or aluminum, their likeness suggests a natural movement.
Aljoscha’s “p-landscapes” and drawings exhibit organic forms inspired by synthetic biology. Starting from the center of the picture, organisms appear to undergo metamorphosis and proliferate in all directions, creating the impression of three-dimensional depth. However, due to the monochromatic, contourless background, the formations float in a weightless, infinite sphere. Aljoscha describes his works as creature-like utopias. The first such future fantasy, the island of “Utopia,” was developed by the British scholar Thomas More some 500 years ago as a remedy for an exhausted society. He, too, positioned his vision far from reality, amidst the vastness of the world’s oceans.
Aljoscha’s large bioisms are always created in place. Combining various small-scale elements, he intervenes in the local environment. The work “From Panspermia and Primordial Soup to Autopoiesis and Cognition” reflects Aljoscha’s profound, scientific exploration translated into a highly poetic formal language. Here we see the unique quality of his works. The “primordial soup” theory defines amino acids as the basic building blocks of life; the “panspermia” hypothesis assumes that bacterial life was transported to Earth by comets. The installation is intended to help us comprehend mutation as the machinery of life. The translucent Plexiglas creates a dynamic highlighting the fact that genetic information constantly changes. The work thus quickly awakens the fantastical idea that after the exhibition has closed, creature-like forms will permeate the entire gallery like a primordial mass.

Artistic interventions as futuristic messages
Showing his subversive sense of humor, Aljoscha frequently places his idiosyncratic forms in public places or on monuments. Here, too, his interventions highlight the contrast between status quo and artistic vision. They seem like a message of hope from a future, better world.

Help Ukraine: “Надiя – Project Hope – Projekt Hoffnung”
In connection with the exhibition, neuland ventures and Gallery Priska Pasquer are organizing the campaign “Help Ukraine.” Art and activism have long gone hand in hand for Aljoscha, not just since the Russian invasion. His “pacifist interventions” documented with a camera are intended to make people aware of the uniqueness of each living being and the need to respect one another. His committed stand has an ethical basis and isn’t motivated by nationalist ideas.
Back in 2014, during the Maidan Uprising in Kyiv, Aljoscha surprised the barricades with his flying bioisms. Shortly before the Russian invasion in 2022, he protested against the threat of war in front of the Motherland Monument, a huge statue in Kyiv erected to commemorate the Soviet victory in World War II. Accompanied by two delicate pink bioisms, and with his arms upstretched and crossed, he confronted the statue’s warlike posture with his naked, defenseless body. The photo documenting this action has been in the press ever since.

Text: Wiebke Hahn

Curated by Priska Pasquer and Wiebke Hahn