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art critic before moving to the United States
almost 10 years ago. "In them, one could con-
jecture any type of content."
Oscar Rabin, whose art can be seen at public
collections in France, Russia and the United
States, brings a combination of Soviet mass cul-
ture and Western Pop Art elements that result in
collages. In Monmarte With Plastic Bags, shop-
ping containers with French images and French
and English lettering are positioned against a
background of falling buildings. Part of a fence
and part of a label pour off the canvas.
Vladimir Yankilevsky, who lives in Paris and
has had exhibits at the Jewish Museum in New
York, offers a rare Jewish symbol in his City
series, formed by mixed media on paper. A six-
pointed Star of David, appearing as four con-
nected triangles, remains distant from two peo-
ple not only boxed in but also forced into con-
torted positions that keep their heads down and
the star out of view.
"Yankilevsky always combines two visual
systems — emotionally drawn figures and a
schematic constructiveness of elements,"
Gertsman says. "Increasingly globalizing his
ideas in the '80s and '90s and expanding the
field of his artistic pervasion, Yankilevsky grad-
ually departs from modernism and easily enters
post-modernism."
Andrej Barov, who lives in Munich and is
represented in Russian and German museums,
is said to mock cultures and confront the
destruction of culture through The Old
Farytale, a photo collage, according to
Gertsman. Old buildings, nude figures and
strangely dressed people are small in compari-
son -to multiple images of Donald Duck in
Nazi uniforms, with nobody paying attention
to the missile-equipped rockets flying overhead.
"Barov is trying to show the departure of
culture today," Gertsman explains. "All of his
works are about the idea that we're going
nowhere."
Other disturbing images take the forms of a
dead turkey in Michael Odnoralov's Holiday
Still-Life and a corpse in Tarot Cards; a bloody
athlete in Komar and Melamid's Discobolus and
an almost frantic sense of movement in Ilya
Shenker's Once on. Fifth Avenue:
"I've seen how people are touched by this
art," Gertsman says. "The works get inside the
mind and soul so that the exhibit provokes a
lot of thinking."
Other Jewish artists exhibiting their work
include Vitaly Dlugy, Gena Glass, Komar and
Melamid, and Ilya Shenker. 1111
Modernism and Post-Modernism:
Russian Art of the Ending Millennium
runs through March 30 at the Elaine
L. Jacob Gallery, 480 W Hancock, on
the Wayne State University campus.
Gallery hours are 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
Tuesdays-Fridays and 11 a.m.-5 p.m.
Saturdays. (313) 577-2423.
41 01.1.101 a.
WHY, YURI DARLING
THIS PAINTING IS A
MASTERPIECE/
Yuri Albert: "Ygrj.
(I Am Not Li
Alexandre G
Ilya Shenk 'Artists
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oil on
'
Oscar Rabin: "Montmartre
with Plastic Bags," 1992,
mixed media on canvas.