On December 3 the XL Gallery is opening its "Jamais vu" exhibition. The exhibition will feature a joint project, or rather a dialogue between the Russian photographer and artist Sergei Sapozhnikov and the famous artist, artist and figure of art Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe, who tragically passed away in 2013. The name of the exhibition can be translated as "never seen before": unlike "deja vu", the state of "jamais vu" makes a person look at something familiar as if it were the first time he saw it. 

In 2016, Sergey Sapozhnikov was invited to take part in Elena Yaichnikova's project "Interaction: the view of contemporary artists on the MMOMA collection". That's when the idea of the project-collaboration with Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe appeared, whose works are in the museum's collection. Since 2015, Sapozhnikov began to implement a number of his experimental projects, the platform for which was the XL gallery, and the story with Mamyshev-Monroe (which also repeatedly exhibited in this gallery) was decided to continue.

"Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe is a very interesting artist. Unfortunately, he is no longer with us, so we follow the principle of different works and collect intersection points from what we have. In other circumstances, I would be happy to take pictures together. I think it would have been something very fun and life-affirming," says Sapozhnikov. 

According to Sergei, this exhibition should be treated as a part of the experiment or a sketch of plans for the future. In the future Sapozhnikov hopes to develop the topic and make a larger and more detailed project.

"Now I will show for the first time my photos of 2010, in which my friend Artem was preparing to enter the theater. All summer we were fooling around and shooting funny pictures, which on the one hand are like jokes, but on the other hand... I don't know. These are not typical for me images, rather - a line that I did not further develop. It's about the ability to shoot people, fashion and working with a production portrait. Not really my genre, though nine years later I thought it was still interesting. As I flipped through the series, I realized that some of the photographs intuitively overlap with the work of Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe. All that remained was to find a way to show it all in the gallery. I find it a very interesting event and a dialogue about visual images, feelings of festivity and sadness, about personality and carefree joy from the fact that there is a possibility to distract from everyday life and to show yourself in another role. I was very pleased to shoot these images, I found them funny, and having created a joint collage with Vlad's works, I understood what really turned out to be funny. It's going to be the funniest exhibition I've ever had," says the photographer.

According to Sapozhnikov, he has never done a modern photography exhibition, and for him it is a new, experimental and fresh look at the display of works.

"Unfortunately, here, unfortunately, the dialogue is one-sided. Of course, there is a lack of joint ideas and a full-fledged process of creation. Rather, the main importance of the exhibition for me is the opportunity to show my respect for the master. And also - to show my favorite works (and, hopefully, to give them a new life), to talk about some common themes. For me, the "Jamais vu" exhibition is another new step towards development, and I am very glad that the XL gallery gives me such an opportunity", - Sergey adds.

Sergey Sapozhnikov is a photographer, artist and curator from Rostov-on-Don. The author's solo exhibitions were held at the XL Gallery (Polaroid Strip, 2015; Dance, 2015; Tiergarten, 2018), the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (Dance, 2018), The Drama Machine Foundation (The Drama Machine, Rostov-on-Don, 2016), Voronezh Central Information Center (Voronezh, 2016) and others. Participant of the project "Museum with predictions" (MMOMA, Moscow, 2014). The works are in the collections of the XL Gallery, the State Tretyakov Gallery, MMOMA, the Vladimir Smirnov and Konstantin Sorokin Foundation and others.

Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe (1969 - 2013) is a Russian artist. Winner of the Kandinsky Prize 2007 (media project of the year: Volga-Volga), finalist of the Kandinsky Prize 2013 (photo project "Remember the gas"). Posthumously awarded the IX All-Russian Innovation 2013 Prize (award "For creative contribution to the development of modern art"). Personal exhibitions of the artist took place in the XL gallery ("My name is Trinity", 1997; "My Life", 2003; "Woman as she is", 2004; "Dostoevsky in flowers", 2005; "In every animal Monroe", 2006; "Russia, which we lost", 2008, etc.).), the St. Petersburg Russian Museum ("Unhappy Love", 1994; "Russian Questions", 1997), the Moscow Museum of Modern Art ("Dostoevsky in Baden-Baden", 2004; "Silent Cinema or Heart Cancer", 2005; "Polonius" 2013, "Archive M", 2015) and others. Works by Vladislav Mamyshev-Monro are in the collections of the XL Gallery, the Russian Museum (St. Petersburg), the Tretyakov Gallery and others.