Olga Chernysheva 

The Train, 2003

Video, 7 minutes and 30 seconds

Chernysheva’s most well-known work The Train is a remarkable video journey through the carriages of a Russian intercity train that recalls the Constructivist cinema of Dziga Vertov. The video is both an affecting window on contemporary Russian life and a shrewd re-working of the structures of conventional cinema: the movement through the train and the interactions with different individuals mimic feature film’s dramatic narratives.

Olga Chernysheva (born 1962 in Moscow, Russia) is a contemporary artist who lives and works in Moscow. Her work spans film, photography, drawing and object-based mediums, where she draws on quotidian moments and marginal spaces from everyday life as a way of exploring the increasing fragmentation of master narratives in contemporary Russian culture.

Chernysheva holds a BA from the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography, Moscow and she finished a residency at the Rijksakademie Van Beeldende Kunsten (Amsterdam). Her work has been exhibited in galleries and museums internationally, including Museum of Modern Art (New York), Lunds Konsthall (Lund), Moscow Biennale for Contemporary Art (Moscow), Biennale of Museum Folkwang (Essen), Kunsthalle Hamburg (Hamburg), Solomon R Guggenheim Museum (New York).

Her work is held in major collections worldwide, including Museum of Modern Art (New York), Louis Vuitton Foundation (Paris), Russian Museum (St. Petersburg), Russian Ministry of Culture (Moscow), Nasher Museum of Art (Duke University), Ludwig Forum fur Internationale Kunst (Aachen), The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design (Oslo), NBK (Berlin), Victoria & Albert Museum (London), Moscow Museum of Modern Art (Moscow).