Two Sisters

Natalia and Maria Arendt
Together with the "Roza Azora" Gallery
Curator: Liubov Shaks
 

Brother-artists are plenty, which, of course, is not bad. The Vesnin brothers, the Burlyuks, Lumiere, the Cohen brothers, after all. Sisters, these are a rare breed. The Arendt sisters are of those. And although they prefer solo parts to a creative duet, they always stay in a common key.
Maria and Natalia Arendt have quite a bit in common, from their last names to their professions. An outstanding sculptor, prominent collector and witty memoir writer, all in one person, Ariadna Arendt left for her granddaughters not only a resonant surname (Brueghel the Elder, Brueghel the Younger — who remembers the difference?) and an array of well-learned tricks of the trade. But also that very small circle of friends and acquaintances, rooted in the famous artists' village' Maslovka, which many dreamed of entering, but only the select few were allowed. Plus their family nest in Koktebel, which seems to barely stand upright, but will probably survive for another hundred years; this is where Maria and Natalia spend their summers and accumulate their creative charge.

It's not surprising then that the sisters' joint exhibition in the Museum of Architecture is saturated with this Koktebel spirit. That is the spirit of the old Koktebel, the real one, the one of which there remain only fragmented memories, ruins and shards, flotsam and jetsam. It is this shipwreck's remnants, as if thrown out onto Koktebel's beaches by an accidental wave, that the Arendt sisters have gathered in the Ruin' building. An appropriate location, isn't it?

The 'suprematist stools' of Natalia Arendt, the elder sister, look crooked and lopsided in a truly Russian way, carelessly nailed together and picturesquely tattered. Reminiscent of either a dilapidated outdoor dacha toilet, or a pigeon loft. But they have an intended elegance, too, and a refined multifunctionalism. And clear artistic audacity. As if this stool had stood in a communal kitchen for decades, the modest child of Russian folk design — until one day some jolly (inebriated) local craftsman decided to take it upon himself to repair the frail construction; and hammered at it here and there, where needed or not, adding haphazardly bits of wood. And it was done so proficiently that an ordinary stool turned into a cosmic object. It may look like an accident, but can an artist really condone accidents? Definitely not an artist who came out of MHAT studio-school (Moscow Academic Art Theatre), with fifty exhibitions to her name (including eight personal shows), and with works purchased by a prestigious museum of contemporary art, the I. Savitsky Museum in Nukus. In the beginning of the 1990's Natalia Arendt moved to London. But she seems to stay connected to her Russian roots. At least she must be re-reading Non-objective art and Suprematism' by Kazimir Malevich ("Follow me, aviator comrades, swim into the void"). And herself, she writes partly nostalgic partly ironic short tales of 'the past life': "The creative process begins like this: I feel like an un-milked cow".

Her sister Maria graduated from the Russian Applied Arts Polytechnic, and that explains a lot. Any material close at hand — whether a cracked old Crimean roof tile, or some other kind of leftover rubble — she turns into art objects. This is what some advanced' western designers love to do nowadays, and maybe that is why the guru of avant-garde art, intuitive collector Brian Eno, collects Maria's works. Her miniature objects carry traces of another civilization, either a long-forgotten one or looming in a distant future. Blunt little boats sail across the azure-coloured clay tiles. A woman with coarse facial features (like the ones on Mycenaean friezes) skins a fish on a wooden table. And men — of course they relax in the shadows of drooping olive trees. Everlasting simplicity. Endless reincarnation. Total recycling.

Svetlana Kunitsyna 2008
 

Russian version