Space Exploration

“If angels and astronauts share the same sky”, she asks, “Isn’t it time they were introduced?”

In a last-ditch attempt to banish my winter woe and soak up some much needed Vitamin B along the way I decided to take a foray in to the Art World. Two highly caffeinated, overpriced cups of capitalism later and the prospect of wandering around an exhibition depicting the past’s perceptions of a Communist Future seemed a perfect antidote to the cultural anti-climax that was New York Fashion Week. The modestly subtle shapes hanging from vacuous cadavers had tormented my retinas for the last seven days. Greys, A-line shapes, more grey, the odd well constructed sweater dress all alluding to a recession friendly future filled with dull safe-bet tailoring. Hoping to be struck down by a wave of inspiration, like the hand of God in the Sistine chapel, in my mind Sputniks’ prongs hovered ominously above my head emanating pulses of creativity and direction. Suffice to say expectations were high.

Now I’m no art critic, my usual repertoire consists of something like ‘I like the colours and the depth’ or occasionally, if I’m trying to impress a particularly pretty boy ‘gosh, how subversive and postmodern’ but like everybody I have a clear idea of what I like and I what I deem to be a load of bollocks. The exhibition on the whole was an eclectic mix of installations, sculptures, found objects all united in their fascination with the cosmos and communist routes. I found my eyes darting from story book to odd contraptions, video art and propaganda posters all within the same room. With almost too much to take in it’s defiantly worth skipping your morning Ritalin for this one. Finally my eyes fixed on a series of collages and unlike U2 I had defiantly found what I was looking for. Aleksandra Mir’s ‘The Dream and The Promise’ consists of a number of religious pictures sourced from Italy combined with Russian style space Iconography. The result is a brilliantly witty collection of images juxtaposing two old enemies Religion and science. Religion was science and now science is religion. In addition to being clever in design the collection is also visually stimulating and satisfying to behold. I may even have emanated an audible ‘LOL’. I left feeling a little peachier and with a new artist to ‘Wiki’ scrawled in my tatty notebook. Thanks to the past or moreover their future mine seemed a little more rosy.





Sophie