Student of Professional technical school 2016

Babak-Matveev produced this digital work, ‘Student of Professional Technical School’, in 2014. It invites us to reflect on the public role of art and the social conditions of its making. In this digitally collaged image, we see a man, possibly a recent immigrant, encountering a statue of a young girl, dressed in pink, arms outstretched, perhaps suggestive of a desire for integration and acceptance. The man’s clothing is an indicator of his class, whilst his traditional embroidered shirt hints at a specific cultural origin. The kitsch backdrop might represent an idea of the West as a land of plenty. What is the artist trying to say about the social structures of his time? Is he self-consciously conservative or progressive? Does he critique the institutions of art? These questions are best answered through researching the artist and his other works, as well as the cultural context of Russia in the early 21st century, where social inequalities were, and are, pronounced. Such historical contextualization reminds us that art's meaning is contingent on the society and institutions that shape it.