Bee Flowers' "Grand Illusions" converts the fabric of everyday life into meaningful symbols and semantic spacial structures. By its very nature, the totalitarian epoch required the entire community's participation. Types of almost romantic illusions were woven into all activities of the masses. The word "Youth," when reiterated in a familiar typeface, is instantly recognizable as the title of a once widely read journal. We see a postcard reading "With gratitude to the great Stalin for our happy childhood!" and elsewhere "Life is better and life is more joyful now." Several of these phrases can identify an entire epoch, for those who understand and remember them.

Today, we see other slogans into which we read a different meaning. Bright, brief, simple, superficial slogans that are meant not for society as a whole, but are directed at individuals, each to be carried away by the carnivalesque revelry of billboards with catchy phrases such as "super," "give in to shopping," "Miss Tourism," "sales," "round the clock." The collectivist personal pronouns 'we,' 'us,' and 'all' have disappeared, with the social density gradually thinning, and a sense of emptiness taking hold. The lyrics of rock band "Leningrad" remind us that "no one pities anyone, not him, not you, not me." These words are shot with loneliness, and drenched in both fear and a weak-willed readiness before some automated sacrifice.

Irina Rekhovskikh, curator - Yaroslavl Art Museum