Beehive is a video-installation using eight television monitors, which transforms the banal action of hair-drying into a fascinating and frightening ritual. With the hair-dryers’ force, the voluminous hair of the models comes to life, sucking out the human essence of its owners. The beautiful models turn into monsters. The project’s name comes from the hairdryer’s sound, which is similar to the buzzing of bees, as well as the popular 60’s hairstyle, which was recently again popularized by Amy Winehouse. Beehive raises important questions about underlying meanings of stereo-typically seductive images in consumer culture, and exposes the boundary of their power and the beginning of dark territories of archetypal fears.
Artist Info
Born in Krasnoyarsk, Veronika Rudyeva-Ryazantseva moved from Siberia to St. Petersburg when she was 19 to study at Mukhina Academy of Art and Design and the Program for Young Practicing Artists at the Pro Arte Foundation. She considers herself part of the generation of “Perestroika’s children” and her work draws special attention to research on post- and post-post-Soviet space. Rudieva-Ryazantseva focuses her work on people and their energy. Very often her works are almost documentaries, but made from a specific and personal point of view. The artist’s main characters are real people who become symbols of time, place and their generation. Sections of the project were presented in 2010 at the 2nd Moscow International Biennale of Young Arts, “Stop! Who Goes There?,” the Festival of Contemporary Arts “Live Perm” in Perm, Russia and the exhibition “Hydroponics.”