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 Andrei Molodkin's work seems a direct reference to Pop Art and Conceptualist icons by the likes of Andy Warhol, Ed Ruscha and Joseph Kosuth. The artist reproduces widely recognized symbols like the dollar or euro sign, the Apollo Belvedere or Nike of Samothrace, spelling out frequently used words from FUCK to DEMOCRACY in bent pipes on a wall or imposing sculptural letters that loom in mid-air. But Molodkin's symbols differ from classic Conceptualism and Pop Art
because this is no longer an empty abstraction. The artist refills them with content in the most literal sense, with the most material substances. Oil, for instance. This substance instead of light runs along tubes forming words, filling large plastic letter-sculptures or splashing about in a transparent aquarium-like figure of Nike of Samothrace. Nearby Nike's double is filled with another liquid, not black this time, but red blood. The artist's statement seems obvious: there is no concept so lofty and abstract that it can retain its meaning when we reveal the inner 'content' or in this case, what Molodkin believes to be the only important factors in the modern world: power, wealth, strength and pain. Yet even when the actual substance pulses through the veins of reality before our very eyes it remains intangible. Since the spectator is unable to appreciate the viscosity of blood or the stickiness of oil, unable to sense their taste or smell, he cannot experience disgust or acquire any real understanding of the sordid truth about our world built on money and death. On the contrary, Molodkin's art objects appear sterile and hermetic. The notorious conflict between form and content seems entirely hopeless. We should never believe mere words, but the real meaning they contain can only be taken on trust.
Irina Kulik
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