Andrey Kharitonov
“...etwas Gesundheit''
2021
Site specific installation. Fabric, turpentine, sound.
“...etwas Gesundheit'' is an installation with an object made of fabric, approaching which the audience hears the words in German 'Komm näher. Ich werde dir etwas Gesundheit geben"(Come closer. I will give you some health) and can smell turpentine. This “multisensory object” deals with ubiquitous hygienic solicitude that has grabbed the top spot on the personal, political, and theoretical agenda of our day.
The title of the work alludes to a phrase Nietzsche once said in hospital after a 'crisis'. Overall, the work refers to the ideas and life circumstances of the famous 19th century philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche and Vladimir Soloviev. Both of them were profoundly engaging in elaboration of concepts and practical matters of health and illness which have had an impact on critical theory of the last century. It is incessantly being re-infused with fresh and controversial content in our time. This again raises the question of the localization of an instance of knowledge and control that maintains its governing position through the reproduction of rituals of access and concealment, objectified utterances and subtle influences.
Andrey Kharitonov is a Russian-born artist who lives and works in Berlin. He graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy at St Petersburg State University. He works with various materials and media, such as painting, photography, installation, video, sound. In recent years, he has consistently focused on abstract painting. His works have been shown at exhibitions in Russia, Latvia and Germany. Andrey Kharitonov is a member of EDGE (https://edge-neuro.art/).
Andrey’s painting practice is mainly concerned with abstracts, where the greatest impact is in the material itself. Colour, consistency, density, rarefaction, line, stain, dark, light, the elasticity of brushwork and surface, all unyield the medium's own life. For Andrey, repetition is a general condition for the persistence of elements, individual things, methods and disciplines, or in this case, works. It cannot be controlled.