Rostan Tavasiev

Rostan Tavasiev was born in 1976 in Moscow, Russia, where he lives and works. He trained as a jeweler at the Carl Fabergé Professional Lyceum of Decorative and Applied Arts, studied Graphic Design at the Stroganov Moscow State Academy of Art and Industry, and took courses in contemporary art strategies at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Moscow. He works in painting, graphics, objects and installation, and is known for a technique he developed in the 2000s called begemotopis, or Hip-Pop-Art, in which stuffed toys act as co-authors of the works. Since the 2020s he has developed art projects conceived for outer space. He has held solo exhibitions at the Multimedia Art Museum and the State Tretyakov Gallery, both in Moscow, and took part in BienalSur in 2017. His work is held in the collections of the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the State Tretyakov Gallery and the Moscow Museum of Modern Art. He was a finalist for the Innovation State Prize in Contemporary Art in 2006 and 2013.