Yuriy Musatov
ENG
The bust, 2025
Stoneware. glazes, hand-building , 1220℃, 33 x 44 x 26cm.
Yuriy Musatov's sculptural work begins with the concept of "otherness." Here, otherness refers to a form that exists outside the human-centered framework through which we habitually understand and classify things. He creates forms that resemble the human figure but have had their human traits erased, so that viewers encounter a presence they cannot easily define.
This work reinterprets the classical form of the bust. A bust ordinarily serves as a portrait, capturing the face and features of a specific individual, but here the face, features, and any trait that would allow personal identification have all disappeared. The bust is therefore no longer a sculpture representing someone in particular; it becomes an image that shows "existence itself," beyond any specific identity.
Through this, he explores whether ceramics, beyond the traditional sculptural framework of reproducing the human figure, can serve as a medium for expressing a presence that is unfamiliar and hard to define. In this work, the bust is no longer anyone's portrait—it stands instead as an abstract model that prompts us to think about the boundary between existence and perception.
