ALA LERESTO PROJECT "I CHALLENGE YOU!"

The Moscow Museum of Modern Art and the Foundation for the Development and Promotion of Peace Ideas "Peacemaker" present Ala Leresto’s project “I Challenge You!”. Within an exposition that constitutes a total installation, the Franco-Lithuanian artist demonstrates how something extraordinary and frightening becomes part of everyday experience.

Visitors are invited to reconsider their system of values through the experience of deep, archetypal fears provoked by a simulation of emotional discomfort.

The author explores the phenomenon of the threshold, turns to the theme of entropy, and asserts that any system is in essence only an imagined construct intended to restrain primordial chaos. The exposition consists of three spaces, each of which is designed to give a specific experience of perception.

The first stage is chaos, the beginning of a transitional moment and of a state of inner war.

The second space denotes the moment of passage and of encounter with oneself. Here the viewer is invited to realise what he or she is personally ready to accept, and what to leave behind.

The last space symbolises the assimilation of the lived experience, a state in which an element that was initially frightening has become part of the ordinary and the generally accepted.

The graphic works presented within the project are the result of a philosophical investigation conducted by the author in an attempt to find the boundary between the organic and the inorganic, the beast, the human being and the Übermensch, dream and waking life. The author explores the phenomenon of transition and regards art as a connecting link that can unite opposites.

Ala Leresto is an artist and graphic artist, a member of the Union of Designers of Moscow. She completed Drawing Courses at the School of Fine Arts of Paris (ENSBA École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts), Lithography Courses at the City Hall of Paris, and the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow State University. Selected exhibition projects: International Art Salon 2014 — Central House of Artists (Moscow, RU, 2014); Florence Biennale IX — Fortezza da Basso (Florence, IT, 2013); "La Pigna" Gallery — Palazzo Maffei Marescotti (Vatican, VA, 2013); Love²Art gallery with “Stella Art International” (Antwerp, BE, 2013); Salon Art en Capital – Grand Palais (Paris, FR, 2012); Not the Royal Academy - Gallery Llewellyn Alexander (London, UK, 2012); Miroiterie (Paris, FR, 2011); Deviant’Art Group “Thing’s Not seen” ’s contest “Draw your favorite song” – Deviant’Art website. Online group exhibition. Awarded 2nd prize.