Issue:
September
2010

By Marian Betancourt
Photos by Michael Rosenthal, except for Relocating Home-Berlin #2

Packing Artist Has the World in her Suitcase

Using the idea of the nesting Russian dolls she played with as a child, artist Asya Reznikov reinvented the "Matroshka" into a video sculpture of nesting suitcases. The viewer shares the fun by watching the video framed inside the lid of a suitcase. In a childlike costume with a large red polka-dot bow in her hair, the artist is seen opening each suitcase to find yet another smaller one inside, and so on. Once all are removed, she reverses the process, and puts them all back in a continuous loop. In "Circadian Rhythm," what goes in one suitcase comes out in the other in two framed video screens juxtaposed on corner walls of the gallery. These are part of the artist's solo show, "Up-Routed," which began this past spring at the Nancy Hoffman Gallery in New York City's Chelsea area and is now at the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio through October 17.

In "Dreaming," a mesmerizing work within a tall narrow frame hanging on the wall, the artist reclines at the base of a staircase (the Soviet Memorial in Berlin), using her signature suitcase as a pillow. She appears to be sleeping, occasionally changing positions while her dreaming self ascends the stairs lugging a heavy suitcase. Sometimes the suitcase morphs into a heavy backpack on this endless trip up and then down the stairs. This continuous motion, as exhausting as it is stimulating, is also expressed in "The Garden of Earthly Delights," inspired by the Hieronymous Bosch triptych of heaven, hell and earth. Vertical and horizontal moving parts are contained within a solid frame. On the left is an escalator going up and on the right, it is coming down. Between them are three horizontal layers of moving feet—mostly human but joined by an occasional pigeon. 

"The pigeons are from Venice," Reznikov quipped, as we chatted in the Nancy Hoffman Gallery, "they have bangles." The 36-year-old artist happened to be at the gallery on this late afternoon, and after noticing my appreciation of her work came over and introduced herself. Reznikov told me she has been making art all her life and has sketchbooks dating back to when she was five years old and emigrated from St. Petersburg (then Leningrad), Russia with her parents and paternal grandparents. They settled in Swampscott outside of Boston, and Reznikov took art classes throughout her school years but her parents insisted she consider a more practical future such as design rather than "straight up art." Thus, with a very generous scholarship to the Rochester Institute of Technology, she studied glass work. In her sophomore year she moved to England for a dual major in glass and illustration; then to France before heading home to attend Massachusetts College of Art, graduating in 1997. She spent a summer in Murano, Italy, where she was the first American woman to work in a glass factory.

"I was frustrated with glass as a material," she said. "In graduate school, I discovered video and other things that took over the kinetic aspect of my work. I love working in different materials and media," she said. "I see myself as an artist who works in whatever material is best suited for my idea."  Reznikov combines photography and sculpture wonderfully in a series of limited edition digital C prints. It was one of these, Relocating Home-Berlin #2, reproduced on the show's invitation that brought me to the gallery. I had recently visited that same street in Berlin where the East Side Gallery preserves the art painted on the Berlin Wall. A pink Trablant convertible, the mass produced soviet era cars that are now collector's items, was parked at the curb. The artist's hand in the bottom left corner of the picture is holding a model house, constructed from postcards to resemble her New York City home, so that it appears to be adjacent to the east side gallery.  "I love creating the props for my work," she said. "It's the sculptor in me." Maps also play a prominent role in Reznikov's work, not only as objects of interest (especially ancient ones) but as a medium for sculpture, as in her Tower of Babel, made entirely of maps.

Reznikov made three "Relocating Home" pictures with places she has lived--New York, Berlin and St. Petersburg. For each city, she built a model of homes or landmarks with postcards. For example, a model of the Brooklyn Bridge is made of postcards from St. Petersburg. In her large C print, she has positioned the bridge to cross the Neva River, rather than the East River. The "relocating" prints are limited editions of eight and sell for approximately $3,800.

Reznikov relocated herself to New York at the turn of the 21st century after she was invited to stay in a friend's apartment on New Year's Eve. The next business day, she said, "I began looking for a job."  She got one as a hostess at the Noho Star on Bleecker Street. Then she applied to the Hunter College graduate program in fine arts where she met Michael Rosenthal, who wrote the sophisticated software for her most recent video installations. "He has multiple roles," she quipped. "He is also my husband." Marriage no doubt inspired her video sculpture, "Packing Bride," a suitcase with a pink polka dotted lining, "I project myself packing my wedding things," she said. This work was bought by the C21 Museum, in Louisville, Kentucky, a very 21st Century Hotel and Museum. "They have a nice collection and being that my work has so much to do with travel and packing," she said, "Packing Bride fits their concept." Reznikov's video sculptures are made in limited editions of two or three, and are more costly than the digital prints.

One of my favorite works in the Up-Routed show was a bedside stand with the bottom drawer open. Through the magic of video, we hear and see the artist's hands sorting through the contents, sometimes with impatience, sometimes with contemplation; an empty wallet, ticket stubs, jewelry. As the hands flipped through the pages of a small notebook, I was drawn to stoop over for a closer look. I wondered if it was something old, perhaps some of her early sketches and notes. I kept watching the hands to make sure they didn't toss it aside. 

Reznikov's work appeared in several group shows this past summer including Nancy Hoffman Gallery, Thompson Giroux Gallery in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and the Panman Gallery in the Roger Smith Hotel in New York. The solo show in Ohio began in August. For more information about Asya Reznikov go to: www.nancyhoffmangallery.com  or www.asyareznikov.com.

© June 2010 LuxuryWeb Magazine. All rights reserved.