Loud sirens of the Caspian bodies II — Agil Abdullayev

^{Loud sirens of the Caspian bodies II

Site-specific installation (screen print, digital photography collage, C-Print, wall paint, stencil paint)
2019
Triump Gallery | Moscow, Russia}

^{In the series, Abdullayev recycles classical visual language, gives pop-culture references and reveals common stereotypes. Rashida does not face the viewers, but we assume to look at a woman because of the ‘obvious’ visual language - long blond wig and clothes such as a seductively short pink dress and fishnet stockings suggest to us so. The composition is reminiscent of that of 'The Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog' by Caspar David Friedrich. Instead of surveying far away mountains in solemn solitude, Abdullayev’s Rashida is usually in public places - in the middle of a busy city in which artificial light turns night into day or crowded beach being the only dressed up person there wearing a prudent floral dress. While Rashida’s figure dominates the space, one may spot dress-and-look-alike male figures invisible from the first sight. Their fashion and postures are typical to heterosexual Caucasian men. Does Rashida look at them? We could know more about Rashida perhaps seeing the facial expression. In one of the images, it is finally revealed. At hotel room, surrounded by images of topless anonymous bodybuilders put in frivolous decorative frames, Rashida poses seductively showing simultaneously shyness and radiating sexuality looking into our eyes.}

^{Funded by Triumph Gallery as part of a group show “OFF THE VELVET CHEST” Curated by Asli Samadova}
^{Photo courtesy: Mikhail Novitsky}