Untitled 1970

Valentin Khrushch made this untitled artwork using collage and paint, though I couldn't tell you when. It's as much sculpture as painting, really. The making feels performative; not exactly slap-dash but more a thoughtful dance of destruction and reconstruction. The material quality here is really important. Khrushch has taken something commonplace - a torn piece of newspaper and a stone - then covered them in thick white paint, drawing attention to their physical presence. That stone, cut open and daubed with fleshy orange, makes me think of a tongue or some other vulnerable, exposed organ. The overall impression is stark, a kind of brutal poetry. Khrushch reminds me a little bit of Kurt Schwitters, in that he sees the potential for beauty and meaning in the discarded fragments of the world. Both of them ask us to slow down and really look, to find the extraordinary in the ordinary. And isn't that what art's all about?