Artist Biography

The work of Polina Kanis uses video and performance in both humorous and haunting ways to interrogate power structures, exploring how they subtly or silently influence our behavior and how we might confront these influences.

Born in 1985 in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and now based in Amsterdam, the artist Polina Kanis is fascinated with power structures and how human beings can question and challenge their presence. As she writes, “In order to resist the prevailing structures, resistance itself must be interrogated. Challenging the notion of ‘action’ and ‘resistance’ is a prerogative to reorient the definition of dissent. Rather than buying into the dichotomy of ‘to act’ or to remain ‘passive’, a new space must be forged.” Such thinking is reflected in Kanis’ work, which itself aims to create a “new space” that resists expectations and creates conditions for the reorientation of the viewers’ relation to power. Kanis graduated from the Herzen State Pedagogical University, Saint Petersburg (2006) and Rodchenko Art School, Moscow (2011) and won the Young Artist category of the Kandinsky Prize for her video Eggs (2010). The film presents the artist attempting to catch the titular objects with her skirt as they are thrown at her. She misses nearly as many as she catches and ends the video covered in yolk and surrounded by broken shells in a farcical commentary on the impossibilities of traditional gender roles.