Disappearing and Appearing – by Edo Dijksterhuis
Potapov has developed a new painting technique for his most recent work. After painting an image, he covers it with a thin layer of plastic. He then paints a second image over it. The dried result melts away uncontrollably as soon as the artist shines a heat lamp on the canvas from behind. Sometimes, a remnant of the upper layer remains, akin to a frayed echo. However, the ‘paint epidermis’ can also be completely destroyed, only surviving in the video in which Potapov records the ‘revealing process’, which he regards as an integral part of the work.
Potapov’s meta-narrative lives somewhere between disappearance and appearance. For example, a reproduction of Gerhard Richter’s Kerze, which symbolises silent protest in former East Germany, is replaced by an industrial chimney emblazoned with the logo of Gazprom, the Russian energy giant that ended up in the hands of all-powerful oligarchs after the Soviet Union’s implosion. An image of a Siberian primeval forest changes into a Chinese coin, a symbol of the impending world power that is about to annex the birthplace of the Russian soul. And behind a frontal view of Stalin House in Novosibirsk, which opened two years ago, lurks a secret agent who points his gun straight at the viewer to remind him that this tourist attraction is nothing more than a propaganda veil for one of the bloodiest regimes in human history.
The theme is directly linked to Russia’s geopolitical reality that has not yet quite closed the book on its Soviet past and is also dealing with a changing world order. Potapov likes to mix this with references to international modernism. For example, under the red of a geometric-abstract Mondrian, sits an equally red launch button, evoking memories of the Cold War’s nuclear threat.