Katya Shkolnik: Time and Perception in the Algorithmic Age
Born in Moscow in 1972 and currently residing in Milan, Katya Shkolnik employs photography to examine elements such as pose and temporal aspects. Her 2019 piece, MG, Forty Minutes, showcases twelve portraits of a model captured over a span of forty minutes, displayed on three layered Plexiglass sheets, effectively visualizing the passage of time. In her works Caprichos and Approximations, the process of recognition is intentionally interrupted. Devoted to R#2 (2013) juxtaposes Rothko's color fields with Pollock's dynamic style in Tanzania. Her upcoming exhibition, Manifesto on Time (2025), at the Abylkhan Kasteev State Museum of Arts in Almaty, Kazakhstan, critiques the commercialization of human time in the digital age, highlighting the distinction between consensual and extracted time through the motif of an hourglass.
Key facts
- Katya Shkolnik was born in Moscow in 1972 and lives and works in Milan.
- She holds a degree in nuclear engineering from MEPhI in Moscow and studied at the Diplomatic Academy.
- Her series MG, Forty Minutes (2019) comprises twelve portraits of one model taken over forty minutes of continuous posing, printed on three superimposed Plexiglass sheets with one color channel per sheet.
- Only one Plexiglass object from MG has been realized; the layered form remains available for any image.
- Manifesto on Time (2025) is a multimedia immersive installation presented at the Abylkhan Kasteev State Museum of Arts in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
- The installation argues that the virtual world collects and monetizes human time without consent, and addresses death in a digital environment and the right to be forgotten.
- In Devoted to R#2 (2013), Shkolnik photographed Tanzanian skies while consciously carrying Rothko's aesthetic, reversing the usual sequence of landscape then painting.
- She later found Pollock's opposite pole in the movement of small fish at night through an underwater light beam.
Entities
Artists
- Katya Shkolnik
- Bruno Sain
- Mark Rothko
- Jackson Pollock
Institutions
- MEPhI
- Diplomatic Academy
- Abylkhan Kasteev State Museum of Arts
- Juliet Art Magazine
Locations
- Moscow
- Russia
- Milan
- Italy
- Almaty
- Kazakhstan
- Tanzania