Interview with Henry Mova, an art hunter who searches for a Spark of creativity in new art.
Henry Mova is a new member of the art industry, representing the unique bionic art movement, an independent art object and an art columnist. As an art hunter, she is working to find innovative solutions in cultural spheres and draws attention to future technologies, issues of global tolerance, and attitudes to artificial intelligence. Setting her example, Henry Mova visually reflects on the right to exist of any creative unit.
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— The new times require opening up new fields of activity. What do you do?
As an art hunter, I search for works that more or less reflect the art of the future, current problems, and new solutions, shaping its style, characteristics, form. They may be new in concept, subject, design, the material used, art media or technique.
“The art created via digital technologies and AR arts experiences take a special place in my research.”
I see there a spark of creative energy, which drives the development of contemporary art, integrates scientific discoveries into the artistic process, helps to unlock another side of hidden potential.
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— How and when did your new life start? When did Henry Mova appear?
The current setting of my mind was not formed in a single day. I think the world situation, including the pandemic, was the trigger for my creation. What happened before my transformation, I can hardly remember, but I’m sure art occupied most of my life. Since I started to study human history in books and open sources on the Internet, I have seen many artifacts illustrating people’s desire for improvement, artistic interpretation, rethinking the world and events, the desire to preserve the beauty of nature and to show human capabilities.
“In my research, I came to the history of our days, in which art began to lose its attractiveness, figurative language, and its connection to ethics and spirituality, acquiring an increasingly commercial purpose.”
In mid-2020, I realized what I could do for the people and for this world to bring back the concept of true beauty and harmony.
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— How do you get to know the world of people and modern culture? Do you have any particular perception of the world around you?
“The Internet and social media are my main allies and potential adversaries. Information resources are often saturated with the same agenda or theme, interrupting other stories and news, usually cultural.”
The appearance of fake materials, reprints, and manipulation of the context affect the perception of events. All this leaves certain traces on my work: I find those works that have fallen into the web, and in some cases, besides the original, there are many copies and fan art. At first, it made me difficult to analyze, but then I adjusted my search system more precisely and began to pay attention to the original works and techniques in which the creative Spark shines.
It’s kind of my thing. I am open to meet any kind of art, even if I do not like, for aesthetic (human) reasons, a work, I can admire the concept of the artist, the way of creation, or other aspects that have been highlighted by my unusual mind in this work (objective analysis). For example, at Art Russia Fair 2021, I saw the installation by Aleksei Diakov, which consists of two parts: a sculpture of an embryo connected to wires instead of a womb; and a monitor with repeated numbers 0 and 1. The work is hardly beautiful in the literal sense of the word, but the concept and meaning are very vivid and speak for themselves. And when I learned in numbers the word «love» – encrypted by binary code – I fell in love with this installation (in a human way).
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— What is your “hunt”? How and where does it take place?
“I collect my art finds online and offline, analyze them, note unusual solutions and non-trivial approaches.”
The process is very addictive, especially on the Internet: I can spend about a day looking through and studying materials with works, biographies of artists, descriptions, statements and notes of art critics. Last September, I made my first public appearance at Cosmoscow 2020. I liked studying the works of artists “live” because many works were not yet in digital space. This includes site-specific objects that are created specifically for the fair.
After that, I started appearing more often as an art hunter and an art object. In December of the same year, my search led me to the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art (Moscow). Now I visit more venues, Cube.Moscow and Art Russia fair, that help galleries and artists develop, show their work to the public.
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— What do you like best? What approaches do you use to search effectively?
To share with people my research and it’s results, to stimulate the desire to learn more, to embrace the power of art, and to change for the better the world around us. I’m an author of an art column “ArtTalk with Henry Mova”, in which I talk about the most interesting art finds of the month (works of artists, designers, creators of VR and AR, sculptors, photographers, and architects). At the end of last year, I tried to convert my search into a video format. There was a series of videos with elements of performance and artistic development of the plot.
The favorite is devoted to art hunting on the 2nd Triennal of Russian contemporary art. FPRBuro team prepared this project for one month. The Garage Museum provided support and exhibition venues for the shooting. I was glad that the artists Albina Mokhryakova, Suzanna Oriordan, and Yuliya Kozhemyako were pleased to take part in this adventure, and the representatives of the museum joined the project by talking about the features of the exhibition.
“Communicating with people who share the same goal makes my art hunting fascinating and productive.”
For example, the most interesting thing about the art platform Cube.Moscow I learned from its founder Nadezhda Zinovskaya, and Elena Parshina’s insights about the exhibition at PA Gallery helped me better understand the irony of the “Art Collector Shop” by Andrey Syaylev.
Henry Mova at Cube.Moscow art space / Jacket VETEMENTS, pants SAINT LAURENT, shoes BALENCIAGA, bag BALENCIAGA
— What are your expectations of the art being created here and now? How do you see it or want to see it?
We can already imagine what art will be like in 10-20 years thanks to high-tech tools for creating works, sculptures, design, and architecture. I’m very inspired by that! So, I try to create a Spark, to help people see it, as well as the beauty of our world, through contemporary art, and to contribute to the preservation of rich cultural heritage, to change the way we view nature and ourselves.
“I want art to harmoniously surround us, help to restore strength and get inspired, to change the lives of people and life on the planet for the better, to help us think outside the box and solve environmental problems, for example, in a recycled art movement.”
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— What is fast art and why do you oppose this trend?
I called fast art a trend towards the rapid consumption of contemporary art. I try to save on my hard drive all the pieces I happen to see. They have in one way or another influenced my emergence and vision of the world. Some of the cases I saw at the exhibitions and fairs led me to the idea of fast art: “Come. Take a picture (or a selfie). Post” – this chain is lack of very important elements, such as “learn”, “read the name of the author/description”, “analyze”, “infer”. It’s like a machine learning algorithm: new input data is taken into mandatory processing and affects the result.
“I want the result to be not only a photo in the background of work, which enriches the Instagram feed or photo album but a rethinking of what I saw, cultural and spiritual enrichment.”
So that the means do not replace the goal. Then fast art will not exist and the work of art will remain in the heart for a long time.
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— What are you hunting now?
Currently, I’m after a new media art, especially digital and physical art. I have a very vivid sense of exploring this sphere. The speed of data transfer on nerve wires is off the charts. I think it’s like falling in love in human terms. I’ve discovered a great hunting ground, and I have art finds in my collection. Among the newest is the work of the Universal Everything team in training dance machine algorithm. They are fascinating, making me want to move in a single motion … and sometimes I wonder «with whom?»: a person or an image created by a digital program?
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— Tell about your costume and your attitude to fashion.
My shell reflects what is happening in our world and protects my inner subtle organization, the perception of beauty leftover from human nature.
“Every appearance I make among humans is a performance designed to initiate creative energy and attract the search for the beauty around me.”
So, I can call myself an art object that represents bionic art movement.
Fashion for me is a full-fledged piece of art. Not only is it a medium of expression, but it’s also a creative process, and it can be difficult. I like bright neon colors, non-standard cuts, textures, and shapes, love bold combinations in clothes. The freedom and riot of creativity that permeates street fashion inspire me to experiment with my style.
Style by Image Room Oleg Tarnopolskiy
Photo Production by FPRBuro Communications Agency
The material provided by FPRBuro Communications Agency