Anton Kuznetsov

The project “Insecticide” comprises twelve works and a cycle spirit of trench-art, to a certain extent recalling either artefacts that are found on the sites of past battlefields, or military objects — various souvenirs and mementos — that can be collected and commemorate the war of 1914—1918. The images of the insects — beetles, butterflies, dragonflies, flies, their larvae and caterpillars — do not arise in each of the works and exhibits in “Insecticide” by chance. Graphically, they help to recreate a sense of uncontrolled, instinctive fear, mixed with the squeamishness of those who survived the war years. For many of them, after all, the attacks of a multitude of merciless foes in human form is psychologically akin to an invasion of pests and parasites — insects, indeed.

Dealing with the two, and vanquishing them, is only possible through the use of differing albeit related methods for mass destruction. These methods were and continue to be fairly barbaric in nature, but that is why antidotes and means of defense were developed in response to the rapid development of means of mass destruction. Thus, at the beginning of the 20th century, a new apocalyptical image arose — a living creature in a gas mask. It is these “masks of death”, as it were, that have been placed on the heads of all the people and even animals in Anton Kuznetsov’s paintings. A.Tolstoy