Most people tend to slot things and phenomena into categories from their personal, imaginary filing system. We usually do this unconsciously — it’s how the mind works: building short chains of associations and comparisons. The brain likes to switch to energy-saving mode… A passer-by, a painting, a basket, a cardboard box — everything is placed into the appropriate mental compartment based on experience, imprinting, and visual exposure. «Visual exposure», for example, is often seen as a key competence in art, yet it can lead to a biased attitude towards new works.

In the «Pinacotheca» series, Alexey Savvin tries to explore how accurate our perceptions truly are, how reliable the images are from the art world that are stored in our memory vaults. This series is a kaleidoscope of textbook masterpieces, sketches scribbled in the margins of the grand artistic narrative. They were created almost without peeking at the originals — more like recalling something important from memory, an attempt to move beyond the a priori ideas of Raphaels, Michelangelos, and other Caravaggios…