"Provmyza" is a Nizhny Novgorod art group, formed by artists Galina Myznikova and Sergey Provorov. It works in the genres of video art, auteur cinema, photography, graphic art, installation, performance, and theatre, following the tendency to erase boundaries between forms and genres in contemporary art.[2] The group's name is made up of the initial syllables of the members' surnames.
Activity and key works
Critics rank "Provmyza" among the best domestic masters of video art — a genre combining traits of grand cinema, painting, and poetry.[1] The group's works are, as a rule, wordless and varied in mood. Among the best known are "Fugue", in which a classical music concert is equated with gusts of stormy wind, while viewers observe the audience's reaction to this substitution. The meditative work "Snowdrop" depicts figures trudging through a snow-covered landscape, culminating in the arrival of a helicopter.[1]
The group is deeply immersed in Russian realities — both scenic and linguistic — and at the same time enjoys considerably greater recognition abroad than at home: "Provmyza" has had more exhibitions in Europe than in Russia.[1]
International recognition
In 2005, "Provmyza", together with the group Escape, represented Russia at the Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art.[1] Five years later, in 2010, the director of the Venice Film Festival included the group's film "Elation" in the festival's main programme — evidence of the blurring of boundaries between auteur cinema and video art.[1] The premiere of "Lullaby" (2012) took place at the Centre Pompidou in Paris; the show at the XL Gallery marked the group's debut in a gallery format.[1]
In 2014, at the anniversary, fifth ceremony held in the General Staff Building of the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, "Provmyza" was awarded the Sergei Kuryokhin Contemporary Art Prize. The group's project "Eternity", in which the confrontation of a child, machinery, and "Martian" landscapes was judged by the jury as a linguistic innovation and the creation of a new space.[3]
In 2025, the international contemporary art fair Cosmoscow named "Provmyza" Artist of the Year. The group has been given the opportunity to realize a new project, to be presented that autumn at the Cosmoscow fair.[2]
Sources
- Vzglyad-NN — Nizhny Novgorod art group PROVMYZA named Artist of the Year by the Cosmoscow Foundation (archive)
- Kommersant (Volga region) — False Crowdedness (archive)
- Newsroom24 — Nizhny Novgorod art group Provmyza awarded prize in the field of contemporary art named after Sergei Kuryokhin — … (archive)
- mapy.com