Evgeny Antufyev

Evgeny Antufyev is one of the key Russian artists of his generation. Antufyev is a graduate of the Institute of Contemporary Art Problems (ICA Moscow); at the age of 23 he received the Kandinsky Prize in the "Young Artist. Project of the Year" category, becoming the youngest nominee in the history of the prize.

Antufyev's work is, above all, an original engagement with material. The artist's interest in archaeological and local-history research formed the basis of many of his projects. Using an anthropological approach, Antufyev has created his own mythology, grounded in elements of traditional crafts and mythological figures from cultures around the world, reinterpreted anew by the artist. In his works, Antufyev explores the influence on human culture of various materials such as stone, bone, wood, amber, and bronze. The worlds Antufyev creates exist at the intersection of nature and culture, legend and fact, the real and the imagined, while a subtle handling of kitsch aesthetics lends his works a charge of irony.

The artist's works are held in numerous private and public collections, including Tate Modern (London, UK), Centre Pompidou (Paris, France), Collezione Maramotti (Reggio Emilia, Italy), the Credit Suisse corporate collection, the Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp M HKA (Antwerp, Belgium), MMOMA (Moscow), and MMOMA (Moscow State Museum of Modern Art).