How do we create our own beauty?

The question "How do we create our own beauty?" was posed thirty years ago by the feminist philosopher Luce Irigaray, a rebellious student of the renowned psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. Her recipe sounded provocative: stop suffering and trying on foreign forms and colors; finally, find your own, feminine ones, because shape and color are sensual, intimate, sexual – they are the dimension of "our embodiment."
The works of eighteen female artists, ranging from Natalia Goncharova to Natalia Turnova, from Lydia Masterkova to Dunya Zakharova, from Maria Serebryakova to Natta Konysheva, in a gallery that had not previously sworn allegiance to the feminist movement, are intriguing. Alina Pinskaya's gallery is known for advocating modernist and retro-modernist values, so we expect a focus on painting and the boundaries of painting. However, nothing is random in the format of the exhibition. Why only women? There aren't many stable ideas about the "nature of women" and its realization in art. Often these programs involve a political agenda or myth-making.
Indeed, what is a "women's exhibition" today? After numerous feminist theories, are we still transmitting a male gaze, searching for signs of female authenticity, or trying to forget about gender differences? Is the belief still alive today that there is no art of women and men, only true art? And what do we think today about the "feminine embodiment" in the works of such different female artists from such different times?

So, there are two opposing ways to talk about art by women and produce it: the traditional ("male") and the feminist (oppositionally "female"). Within the traditional approach, there is also a niche provided for women to embody their familiar themes. They are well-known – self-portraits, children, everyday life, landscapes, bouquets, etc. Feminist critique attempts to reinterpret the canon, offering different criteria for interpretation and production. These include decentralizing the world, where men no longer hold privileged positions; the utmost intimacy with the viewer; maximum actualization of female materials ("wool, not marble"); the use of the present continuous tense (Gertrude Stein); openness to cyclical time; prioritizing the natural over the civilizational, the horizontal over the vertical, the emotional over the rational, and much more. Jumping ahead, I can say that the gallery is definitely looking for a third, middle way.
The gallery exhibition has understandable limitations in terms of material volume and generalizations. The historical part of this group exhibition doesn't so much claim historicity as it reflects the interest and taste of Alina Pinskaya and marks important milestones for the gallery. The contemporary part is more comprehensive and, if it doesn't promise, at least suggests an intriguing continuation.


The exhibition is filled with both expected gaps and unexpected connections. For instance, there's a significant and uncharted distance between the lyrical realism of Vera Pestel and the lyrical abstraction of Anna Staritskaya (1950). The modest "Nude" (1935) by the "quiet avant-gardist" Pestel noticeably contradicts her aggressive graphic nudes. (It's worth noting, in parentheses, that Vera Pestel is not quite as quiet as she may seem if she told her students that Repin was a bit vulgar, couldn't feel colors, and only painted the "skin of things"). The only example of lyrical-realistic nudity at the exhibition almost seems like a challenge, as if the nude has dressed hastily to leave. However, the noticeable reduction of the most traditional "female" motif here appears to be a deliberate decision. The exhibition's focus is on various forms of abstraction, which complicates the notion of gender difference. Furthermore, Natalia Goncharova is represented by an expressive but unrecognizable floral composition ("Set Design Sketch"), and Anna Staritskaya by massive color shifts and contrasts that are not characteristic of her but are carefully balanced compositions. In this context, Rima Zanevskaya's geometric play seems cunning, and her poems come to mind:

How can you not feel uncomfortable
Standing before me
Under my gaze that studies you...
You even blush.


Within a single exhibition, the "Compositions" by Masterkova (1960s) engage in an unexpected dialogue with the "rock 'n' roll" compositions of early Begalskaya, while the familiar metaphysical grisaille landscapes of Maria Serebryakova are displaced by her unexpected work "Drops," where the declared drops more closely resemble downed airplanes. A pleasant surprise for fans of Marevna could be her picturesque "Vase with Flowers" (1930s), evidence of creative exploration where everything seemed to have already been discovered.
Natalia Turnova's series "Soldiers" (2000s) and "Diagnosis" (2009), where her epic of changing times unexpectedly shed her signature colors and turned darker, made room to highlight the vivid figure of a sniper from the 90s. It is easy to see that Turnova's painting has not lost its stern empathy or mythogenic dimension, remaining only similar to itself.


The color and form of many works in the exhibition do not loudly proclaim a distinct female perspective or a different sensuality, yet it seems that, to some extent, they testify to the very femininity that Irigaray energetically insisted upon. In fairness, feminist theorizing also had its doubts and was less demanding than Irigaray. For instance, Professor Gisela Ecker wrote around the same time: "If we were content with the assertion that a different sensibility, which cannot be defined, is at work in women's art, why don't we stop trying to define it?" Indeed, if the authenticity of what is considered "female" in art has not been found so far, why not continue the search? And there is little reason to stop if there is an element of myth-making evident in specific searches, as art history is no stranger to myth-making.
The pseudo-abstractions by Alena Kirtsova are surprising with their elegance and a special ability to suddenly introduce color, which has direct access to the most unspoken layers of perception and can kindly remind us of something long forgotten ("Interior of the corridor with a mirror," "View of the embankment from the Moskva River Bridge"). In her series "Little Night Walks," color is sometimes almost turned off, but the intimate connection with the viewer is not lost.


The interiors in Alexandra Paperno's work, despite their programmatic openness, are imbued with a certain semiotic melancholy and dreamlike incompleteness. The colors are subdued and dispersed, numerous rooms do not hurry anywhere but realize the opportunity to say the most necessary, to discover the most intimate. Sometimes, it's just an imperceptible rectangle of thin rice paper, a secret curtain in the window of "one's own room," to recall Virginia Woolf's essay.
In Irina Petrakova's works, there is a constant reframing of the flowing script of the body or its stammering speech. Physiological motifs, reminiscent of Maria Lassnig, Francis Bacon, or Lucian Freud, surface automatically, only to disappear immediately and, most importantly, to fix their own confessional and heroic formal creativity.
The exhibition also features the traditionally "female" material - embroidery. But even it is capable of shedding tradition, as seen in Duna Zakharova's work, which acquires the precision of graphic sketching and craftsmanship comparable only to skillful glazing. Fedora Akimova's "Kiyots" also noticeably expand the territory of this medium.

No categorization of art is universal. A male perspective is not more universal than a female one, and vice versa. We cannot confidently determine the gender of an artist based on their works. However, close attention to all aspects of artistic expression, including gender-related ones, brings art as close as possible to the universal potential of being embodied.