Personal Disturbances at Dam Stuhltrager Gallery

Whether documented in fairy tales or horror films, epic poems or sweeping literary masterpieces, stories of personal journeys have populated literature, visual arts and cultural traditions for as long as anyone can remember. Oddyseus blinded the Cyclops on his journey back to Ithaca; Alice fell down a rabbit hole into the alternate dimension of Wonderland; Dorothy wandered along the yellow brick road on a quest for higher knowledge in the land of Oz; and most recently, at Williamsburg’s Dam, Stuhltrager Gallery, Mishka, a half bear-quarter monkey-quarter person creature, along with two punked-out baby dolls, embarks on a journey of his own in “Scene One,” an exhibit of two short films by Moscow-born Williamsburg-based artist Yuliya Lanina.

The show features surreal forays into the self-discovery of robotic children’s toys in two films and the four animatronic stages that inspired them. Lanina, whose influences range from Russian and Greek fairy tales to stop animation to feminist art, said in her artist statement that she likes to disassemble familiar elements and put them together in new ways, often juxtaposing opposing themes, offering the viewer and opportunity to draw his own parallels. She said her work centers around sexuality and combines aspects of her Russian roots with her identity as a New Yorker.

“In my work I explore cultural identity and sexuality through images of perverse yet innocent dolls. Taking cute and cuddly ready-mades and turning them into fetishistic objects, I construct my work on the intensity of coexistence of opposite extremes and remain open to a multiplicity of interpretations,” Lanina said.

A film projection titled “Mishka,” which is Russian for teddy bear, as well as a diminutive of a popular Russian name Misha, is the centerpiece of the exhibit. The film documents Mishka’s journey through a series of grotesque, yet beautiful landscapes. It opens with a shot of red curtains parting on a red-lit scene reminiscent of a brothel from hell. A white bunny displays her breasts to a panting dog. Mishka smokes a hand-rolled cigarette as he watches them. Three scantily-clad female dolls with bunny ears dance to a silly song and expose their breasts at equally timed intervals. Mishka then mounts a white doll with a glowing third-eye and rides it into “Winter Wonderland.” The music slows down as the camera pans around an icy white set with angelic white birds and insects. When Mishka climbs a white tree to poach an egg from a nest, a mythical bird snatches him and drops him into a red sweltering jungle with copulating carrots, moths and red birds. A knife-wielding voodoo doll approaches him to the beat of the African drum. He covers his eyes and screams. All turns black. Mishka’s journey ends on a tinseled stage as he transforms into a black-pleather-wearing rock star performing alongside an owl. Champagne glasses clink as women whisper. He comes back to the world he tried to leave with greater wisdom and experience. The end.

The second film, “Play with Me” features baby dolls with Mohawks and piercings motorcycling through a sinister wonderland. The trip is punctuated by haunting child-like laughter and heavy music evocative of the industrial metal sounds of the German band Rammstein, as they pass a black masked face among many other absurdities. Suddenly, all stops as one of the dolls shoots a white bird with an arrow. It slowly falls to the sounds of a Russian Orthodox prayer as all the creatures stare and whisper. A large black being descends as trippy music plays. The film ends with nightmarish laughing head with big hair and blinking red eyes.

Four stages, three of them from the films, are displayed alongside the video projections. The season-appropriate “Winter Wonderland” lines the windowsill of the gallery’s frosted window. The sill is covered with white Papier Mache shavings, with white tree-like sculptures. Angelic white human-headed dolls and insects sit atop some of the “trees” and some “ branches” are hung with white fuzzy breasts. Two cherubic faces emerge from a flesh-colored chrysalis and white heads populate the space.

The other three sets are theatrical stages that rest on stockinged women’s legs with velvet-gloved hands parting the red and black curtains. Lanina said the stages harked back to the maternal womb, to life happening inside a woman’s body.

“Once…” is a black stage with a mirrored background. A tree-like structure grows at the center with eye-flowers, perched with human-headed birds with half humans-half goats grazing underneath.

The third stage “Celebration” features a heavily intoxicated Mishka passed out in the middle of the stage with his wine glass lying next to him. The three scantily-clad female creatures that are seen in the film sing “Happy Birthday,” dance and expose their cleavage as a disco ball hangs from a white menacing red-eyed doll’s head suspended from the ceiling.

“Lullaby” houses a giant red monster with a diamond studded tooth holding a baby doll. The stage is decorated with erotic portraits of different stuffed animals. When the stage is activated by clapping, the monster begins to rock the doll, all the while singing “Rockabye baby.”

The innocence of children’s toys is jarring when they are put in adult situations. Lanina purposely used ambiguous sexualized and otherwise disturbing themes in her pieces to evoke strong emotions. The show is repulsive, yet addictive at the same time. The viewer leaves with an insight into the personal journeys of fictional characters that will perhaps influence his own self-discovery in beautiful, and disturbing, ways.