„Mickey Mouse“, 2009,
Object, Mixed media

Mickey Mouse
The gleaming figures of Disneyworld turn into losers in their juxtaposition with everyday Russian life and its industrial mass-produced commodities. Mickey has mutated into an Anti-Mickey. Glamour and radiance are gone – and objects emerge, made of wood, aluminum cans, rusty sheet metal, felt, foamed plastic, rubber, textiles, packaging tape, roofing paper, metal, and newspapers, whose superficial materiality underscores the dilemma of recycling. Deeply anchored in the old Russian society is a passion for collecting; everything is saved, nothing is discarded. Here are displayed the many-layered contradictions of the present-day so-called throwaway society. Koneva’s objects embody a bit of cultural history in which valuable and kitschy, demanding and bizarre things stand beside each other.