KILL BILL

October 28 - November 16, 2017

Artist: Alyona Kuznetsova

The Kill Bill project points out the overflowing problem of advertising in our lives. During her past travels, the artist has documented 3x6m billboards destroyed by time and nature. The natural death of advertising on billboards is ironic, since it is impossible to remove the advertisements deliberately. While the title of this project shares its name with the famous movie “Kill Bill,” in this case "bill" is a reduction from "billboard," as in "Kill the Billboard."

Advertisements follows us everywhere, and distribute fragmentary messages captures out of context. Online we can use AdBlock services to limit the pop-up advertising that has turned into informational overload. In daily life of a city, however, we are not able to control our media consumption. The desire to reduce the extent of outdoor advertising now seems a utopian dream.

The Kill Bill project points out the overflowing problem of advertising in our lives. During her past travels, the artist has documented 3x6m billboards destroyed by time and nature. The natural death of advertising on billboards is ironic, since it is impossible to remove the advertisements deliberately. While the title of this project shares its name with the famous movie “Kill Bill,” in this case "bill" is a reduction from "billboard," as in "Kill the Billboard."

The artist imitated the destroyed billboards by painting them with oil on canvas. She raised questions about the kind of aesthetic and unobtrusive messages these "islands of silence" bring. Such self-appeared images can be considered works of art on their own. The project appealed to the debate between the "abstract" and "figurative" in art. It is impossible to distinguish between these concepts in Alyona’s works. On the one hand, they are figurative and transmit a recognizable narrative with patches of advertising images. On the other hand, they are completely abstract and visualise uncertainty, indefiniteness, and indeterminacy. The subject of the paintings is in a borderline state, when existing narratives die and new meanings are born. There is a transition from realism and exactness to abstraction and uncertainty.