Everything surreal is based on real events

September 15 Andrey Kasay presents his new exhibition Vacation! at BURSA Gallery. We asked the artist what he brought to Kiev, who is Dodik the seal and how he worked with Mumiy Troll.

- What is your exhibition Vacation! about?

- If i knew! It’s about everything little by little as usual and as always it’s based on real events. So be sure to come by otherwise you’ll skip.

- How is the exhibition perceived in the West? Does its interpretation change in the European context?

- Yes, I showed it once in Vienna, but it was excellent! Although the other day the video from this exhibition was shown at the LOFTAS festival in Vilnius. It is clear that this is more about our reality and it’s needed to be in context, but I am sure that many things overlap with European life. The truth is I’m not sure that they get it, but we are all different.

- How did you spend your summer vacation? Did you get a rest?

- I do not have a vacation, where do they come from, I've finished studying long time ago. I adore summer in Moscow, because this is the only time of the year when it's just super and you do not want to whip away.

- Are the works consonant with your personal experience? Were you dreaming of exchanging your jacket for swimming trunks while sitting in the office? Or are your characters is just observation from the outside?

- Again, as I said, everything is based on real events. But are they real ... I never wore a jacket, although stop! I had one with an eagle on my back, but I'll tell about it another time.

- Who is Dodik the seal?

- Oh, Dodik! I'm glad that you asked. This is my favorite, it is something concrete tangible and at the same time it is not, it is a seal and a complete abstraction. It's all and nothing. Or maybe it's you and me?

- Do your characters live in the same universe? Is this our dimension?

- Who is where. One is in Moscow, one is at the automatic telephone station, one is in the address book, one is in the hotel, one is in the internal combustion engine. But all this is reality, it's just that everyone has its own.

- Your heroes dream a lot, but their dreams are broken against the harsh surreality. Do they (and we) have any way out?

- Dreaming is not harmful, as they say. And if there is a way out, you will find out about it when you’ll visit my exhibition.

- Can your works be considered as a mix of pop and sots art? How important are these directions to you at all? Do you consider yourself a follower of Komar and Melamid?

- You can arbitrarily consider. It just so happened, I'm making it and there’s something turns out. I do not know the history of art very well, so I almost do not know these guys. What a follower, look at me, I'm more like an upstart.

- Is your love of acid colors came from the childhood in 90's? Do you think this is in some sense compensation?

- Yes, of course, in any case, some influence this all had, all these guyvers, transformers and toxic cruiser. But still, as I recall, I started using them when I realized that no one here does so and I always lacked the color. And I thought, why not me ?!

- Share your inspiration. Favorite artists and instagram-accounts?

- Look more often on the sides, everything is around. I never go for inspiration to artists and do not advise anyone. Instagram is better to remove.

- The fact, that on the site flakonkishochki.ru NSFW content - is it your idea or the site was hacked?

- This is an installation-performance, but unfortunately not mine.

- Someday you will be engaged in 3D animation or just old school?

- I would like to cut off my foul.

- You're from the Far East. What is it, in a nutshell? Does it feel like you are on the periphery?

- Yes, Big mosquito, 5K Kazanka! Rather, you feel yourself in the center of the world, at the point of reference. If you do not believe, then it's easy to check.

- In 2015, you created an animation for the trilogy of clips of group Mummies Troll. Lyrics of Lagutenko, like your works are surrealistic to the full. How did you work? Did you come up with animation regardless of the texts?

- It was a great project, a starting point in my already conscious journey through the world of animation. Perfect cooperation, when I came up with a story, neither I, nor even Lagutenko did not know for what songs clips would be in the end. And this is another element of surreal, taken from real life, as you can see.

The guys gave me kindness for everything I did and it should be so, because they did their part - writing songs, and I made my own video.

- Why do you think people fancied your music group NRKTK?

- It's simple, it's f***ing cool. ))

- Do you think about going back to music?

- What for? The best album is recorded, the worst one too.