Rimma Gerlovina & Valeriy Gerlovin

Rimma Gerlovina & Valeriy Gerlovin are not your typical artist describing their works as “photoglyphs” they conjure up two contradictory meanings photo meaning writing with light in Greek and glyph meaning carved symbol , illogical parings are typical ingredients of the Gerlovin’s work these two artist enjoy intentionally subverting logic. There work always has something to say both artist are originally from the USSR where they lived in a county where journalistic wiring was manipulated and propaganda and double means were an everyday awareness. Leading members in the soviet avant garde they used duplicity, puns, and innuendos to protect themselves from authorities. When they moved to the US in 1980 they were given a whole new linguistic world to stretch collapse and manipulate the meaning of. The Gerlovins ask such illogical propositions as “past and future are contained in the present. Two bodies cans occupy the same space at the same time. That space has energy that living and nonliving entities are not easily differentiated that there is order in randomness. That a speck of dust contains the truth of the entire universe.” In one of the most famous pieces “To Be, Or Not, Or Both, Or Neither” the title has been stenciled on to Rimma’s arms and legs in a bold black type face suming up Hamlet’s famous question and updating it for the twentieth century. Transfused it to a newly built conundrum the frame consist of Rimma curled in on herself almost as if withdrawn in confusion. Her body not held within the frame exploring the idea that she and her question cannot be held in the tight logical borders she is literally and metaphorically marked by her confusing destiny in the piece BE-LIE-VE Rimma has the same bold black letters this time on her forehead as two strand of hair cross her face to form an X it divides the word believe so that LIE is isolated to assert the interconnection between faith (believe) and deception (lie). The Gerlovinas draw on many influences from Raja Yoga, Eastern philosophy, Jewish mysticism, Russian Poetry, but they provide no answers, instead they actively deny the possibility of a singular one with their work.