Vika Begalska and Alexander Vilkin

Vika Begalska and Alexander Vilkin is a Moscow-based artistic duo who started working together in 2014. One of their most significant mutual projects by the duo– a performative puppet play entitled Aphrodite’s Girdle, got noticed and made it to a short-list of a prestigious Russian prize in contemporary art– the Innovation Prize. In 2017, the video footage of the performance was shown at the Teresa Union’s personal show at M HKA museum in Antwerp, Belgium. As an artistic duo, the two have had five solo exhibitions with two of them being held at the pop/off/art gallery. In 2017, the artists have exhibited their works in Lightcube gallery in Ronse, Belgium. In 2018 the artists had two personal shows organized with the support of pop/off/art gallery– in Moscow’s Art4 Museum and in Nizhniy Novgorod’s 9B gallery.

Vika Begalska was born in Dnetropetrovsk in Soviet Ukraine. The artist has been living and working in Moscow since 2000. She primarily works with contemporary painting, video art and performance practices. Begalska has been represented by pop/off/art gallery since 2007. In 2013 she founded the Feminist Kitchen an art platform integrating artistic and social projects aimed against social injustice and the subordinate role of the woman in the society, in partnership with Oksana Sarkisyan, Moscow. In 2014 Begalska founded Terese Creative Union of sex-workers and artists, in partnership with Alexander Vilkin and Diana Portiens, St. Petersburg.

Alexander Vilkin was born in Snezhinsk in Chelyabinsk region. The artist has been working and living in St. Petersburg since 2005. Vilkin graduated from Chelyabinsk State Higher School for Arts, the North West Institute for Printing and Book Graphics, and the BAZA Institute of Contemporary Art. In 006 together with Igor Mezheritskiy and Grigoriy Yuschenko, he founded the Prosthesis art group. Since 2006 he participated in the creative alliance Parasite, St. Petersburg. Since 2014 artist has been living and working in Moscow.