IGOR MISCHIYEV
Infinite Home
15 FEBRUARY - 15 MARCH 2003





Exterior view of
Large Birds, Small Birds (for Pier Paulo Pasolini), 2002
Vinyl
14 birds; varied dimensions
Installation dimensions site specific








Installation








Clotheshorse, 2002
Stainless steel, fabric
96 x 32 x 32 inches
Edition of 3








Neuschnee (Cleaning State #2/3), 2001-02
Lambdachrome mounted in lightbox
49 _ 69 _ x 7 inches









Mittelerde (Cleaning State #2/3), 2000-02
Lambdachrome mounted in lightbox
49 _ x 74 _ x 7 inches








Untitled (Views from the Multi Story Car Park), 2002
Inkjet print on paper
Dimensions site specific








 

Sandra Gering Gallery is pleased to present Infinite Home, an exhibition of new work by Igor Mischiyev, from 15 February through 15 March 2003.

Mischiyev's previous exhibition, Multi Story Car Park, featured photographs of indoor parking garages. In his digitally reworked images, Mischiyev transformed these anonymous public spaces into pristine, intimate environments. He concentrated on the garages' "non-places" — unusable spaces — adding textures and furniture that evoked a domestic setting.

While in Multi Story Car Park the viewer peered into an interior world, in Infinite Home, the viewer enters a constructed environment and peers out. Mischiyev expands his involvement with architecture by transforming the gallery into a domestic landscape. Photographic lightboxes loosely represent windows; a geometric sculpture references a clothes rack; white carpet covers the gallery floor; wallpaper covers one wall.

The photographs in the two lightboxes were taken out of the window of Mischiyev's Berlin apartment. Mischiyev digitally touched up the images — removing trash and signs of wear and tear — leaving strangely un-touched landscapes. No people or indications of their presence remain. Contrasting with this surrealistic absence of human presence, viewers entering the gallery/home will alter it by tracking dirt on the initially pristine white carpet. Mischiyev does not intend the carpet to be cleaned during the exhibition; so the interior space will become gradually dirtier, while the fictionalized exterior will remain clean and idealized. By bringing the domestic act of cleaning out of the personal space and into the urban area, Mischiyev unfolds the space of the home, expanding its boundaries.



In Infinite Home, the definitions of public and private fold in and around each other. Viewers enter the "home," supposedly a private space, but have no access to the public space viewed through the "windows". This confusion between public/private-interior/exterior is further amplified by silhouettes of white birds placed on the gallery's storefront windows. It becomes unclear where the transition from inside to outside takes place. Photographic wallpaper depicting an urban landscape again addresses the illusion of boundaries, bringing an exterior scene into the domesticated gallery.

Infinite Home refers to the term the Philips company coined for a futuristic line of "smart" house appliances.