The video "Russian Museum" (2004) is an excellent example of the poetical imposition onto pictures of the romantic principle of reflection. This handheld camcorder tour of the Russian museum in St. Petersburg concentrates less on the paintings on show, but instead displays their fleeting reflected images caught in the museum's glass windows. Young female spectators in tight jeans and high-heeled shoes appear to inhabit the canvases of famous Russian painters. Museum employees appear to be fording the rivers of well known Russian landscapes and men in modern street clothes seem to disappear into bushes out of which a new picture suddenly comes into focus. Pictures are generated out of pictures in a seemingly never-ending procession. The whole work is accompanied by an energising, meditative musical score - a typical product of the new-Russian mix of the wellness and esoteric movement, which Olga Chernysheva has also used in her other works. What is highlighted is the absurdity of the dreams and imaginings that we bring to the museum's paintings. Romantic irony is also reflected here again as the awareness of a deep abyss which separates us from our desires and ideas.

Olga Chernysheva
From the series "Russian Museum", 2003
pencil on paper, 29.5X42 cm




Olga Chernysheva
From the series "Russian Museum", 2003
pencil on paper, 29.5X42 cm

Olga Chernysheva
From the series "Russian Museum", 2003
pencil on paper, 29.5X42 cm