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Past exhibitions

Mother Tongue 09 March — 11 May 2019

Apparition of the Last Soviet Artist in London 16 October — 17 October 2018

ShadowMemory x Art Night Open 07 July — 08 July 2018

ShadowMemory х Ural Biennial 14 September — 12 November 2017

Postponed Futures 26 April — 24 June 2017

Destined To Be Happy 02 December 2016 — 28 February 2017

Superwoman: ‘Work, Build and Don’t Whine' 18 June — 15 October 2016

Unexpected Eisenstein 17 February — 30 April 2016

Between The Lines 26 January — 08 February 2016

Peripheral Visions 02 October — 30 November 2015

Bonobo 17 July — 30 August 2015

DNA Swap 05 June — 11 June 2015

Documenting Ukraine 14 May — 17 May 2015

Borderlands 20 March — 16 May 2015

Bolt 06 December 2014 — 28 February 2015

A Game in Hell. The Great War in Russia 27 September — 26 November 2014

Work and Play Behind the Iron Curtain 20 June — 31 August 2014

The Shabolovka Tower Model 31 May — 12 June 2014

Taint 08 April — 03 May 2014

Kino/Film: Soviet Posters of the Silent Screen 17 January — 29 March 2014

Utopia LTD 21 September — 20 December 2013

See USSR 07 June — 31 August 2013

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Mother Tongue

Mother Tongue

09 March — 11 May 2019

GRAD and Pushkin House are proud to present Mother Tongue/ Родная Речь, the first London solo exhibition by New York-based Russian artist Yevgeniy Fiks, exploring historical gay Russian argot or slang. This coded language dates back to Soviet times and can be compared to Britain’s polari, the jargon used in the past by gay and other subcultures.

Exhibition opening hours | Free Entry
Thursday, Friday 11am–5pm
Saturday 1pm–6pm

Pushkin House, 5a Bloomsbury Square, London, WC1A 2TA

Press Release


Panel Discussion with artist Yevgeniy Fiks, writer Juliet Jacques, art historian Prof Sarah Wilson and historian Prof Dan Healey

08 March 2019

The panel focused on historical gay Russian argot – the theme of this exhibition. This coded language dates back to Soviet times and can be compared to Britain’s ‘polari’ jargon.

Private View

08 March 2019

About the artist

Yevgeniy Fiks was born in Moscow in 1972 and has been living and working in New York since 1994. Fiks has produced many projects on the subject of the Post-Soviet dialog in the West, among them: 'Lenin for Your Library?' in which he mailed V.I. Lenin’s text "Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism” to one hundred global corporations as a donation for their corporate libraries; 'Communist Party USA', a series of portraits of current members of Communist Party USA, painted from life in the Party’s national headquarters in New York City; and 'Communist Guide to New York City', a series of photographs of buildings and public places in New York City that are connected to the history of the American Communist movement. Fiks’ work has been shown internationally. This includes exhibitions in the United States at Winkleman and Postmasters galleries (both in New York) Mass MoCA, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Moscow Museum of Modern Art and Marat Guelman Gallery in Moscow; Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros in Mexico City, and the Museu Colecção Berardo in Lisbon. His work has been included in the Biennale of Sydney (2008), Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (2011), and Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art (2015).

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