MishMash: Art is really a salvation from reality

Russian Art Focus met with MishMash – an artistic duo whose title is formed from names of its founders, artists Misha Leykin and Masha Sumnina. At the same time “mishmash” in English and some other languages means some confused mixture of things. As a duo and a couple MishMash has been together for around 20 years. We spoke about their living in New York in the early 2000s, and differences of artist’s life is in the USA and Russia; their first year apart during the pandemic and how it resulted in the “wrapper” object “Over&Over”; how art can help to make peace with life and how to generate a perfect title for an artwork. Misha Leykin is an architect, Masha Sumnina graduated from the Polygraph Institute, as a duo they are working with sculpture, installation, painting, public art, design projects and artistic actions. MishMash were finalists of the Kandinsky Prize in 2007, 2014, 2015 and 2016, short-listed for the state Innovation Award in 2011, selected artists of the year of Cosmoscow art fair in 2019. Their works were presented in personal and group shows at Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow, Centre Pompidou, Paris, Kunsthalle Dusseldorf, The Buss Museum, Miami etc.