Ivan Chemakin is a painter, graphic artist and sculptor, who represents the life of human beings and everyday urban reality. The artist’s sensitive attitude to materials and textures has contributed to his continuing expansion in terms of artistic techniques — ranging from flat paintings to large-scale installations made of refuse and found objects. At the exhibition MOP-2 — The Monkeys’ Prey, which took place in the art group Sever-7’s self-organised exhibition space Kunsthalle Nummer Sieben, the artist presented a reconceptualisation of childhood memories from the early 1990s. Rejecting the direct citation of images drawn from mass culture, Chemakin focused instead on materials and artefacts of the era — which he considers to be the most characteristic distinguishing feature of the period. The three sections of the exposition — “Party in the ravine”, “Dryer” and “City” — the author created models forming a collective image of the nineties. The characters inhabiting the installations — monkeys — pointed to the fantasy nature of the spaces he constructed while simultaneously emphasising their proximity to human experience.