ORELART PARIS Art Contemporain Russe et International

Dasha Fusey’s theme of the project « Vive la Reine-volution! » is again about History. The subject of these works establishes a connection between the French revolution and that of Saint Petersburg. It is through the destiny of the Queen of France, Marie Antoinette as muse of the French revolution, which has evolved her inspiration here.

Saint Petersburg is a city of three revolutions. If the town of Leningrad was called (according to soviet ideology) ‘the cradle of the Russian revolution’, the French revolution is ‘the origin of all revolutions’.

The common point between social and artistic revolutions is the shock of two worlds, the ancient and the new. In French history it acts as a rupture initiated by the philosophical ideas of the century of enlightenment and the wild mass throwing out everything in its road. The destructive reality introduced itself in the sphere of the royal court where the cult of pleasure and hedonism were the master words. In this context, the image of the queen of France has become a symbol.

In her work Dasha Fursey directs herself towards a revolutionary opposition across two artistic sources.
She employs oil paint combining elements issued from traditional portraiture with others much more modern, such as collages with recuperated elements. (Such as the Dadaists liked so much). This reminds us of the way the barricades of the revolutionists were constructed.

One of the results of the French revolution was the annihilation of the aristocratic society, and of a total world order. Definitively, the fact that any artist can represent the Queen as he or she wishes by using different traditions and artistic sources is none other than a consequence of revolutionary skill.
Dasha Fursey has tried to use it in her way.