The central object in Stasia Grishina’s installation "This dog only knew that barking" is a conditionally minimalist sculpture. It clearly references the work of Sol LeWitt, who created the so-called open structures—skeletal objects in which the artist, by working with outlines, deliberately rejected the “filling” of the form. However, it is also worth mentioning another artist with whom LeWitt frequently corresponded: Eva Hesse. Like him, she explored repetition, seriality, and process in art. Yet her method, as art critic and curator Lucy Lippard described—particularly in a 1966 exhibition—was not minimalism, but rather eccentric abstraction, which instead offered a bodily critique of minimalism. These were also cubes and other spatial objects, but theatricalized, open situations tied to physical sensation, ambiguity, and accident.

Grishina’s cube, covered in papier-mâché, is rough and lumpy—resembling a blurred, imprecise version of a Sol LeWitt structure. This central object is linked to another protagonist in the installation: a highly curious dog. This is compelling, since in art history, beginning in the 1960s, the cube came to symbolize the artwork itself—its zero degree. For Grishina, however, an artwork is not something elevated or situated in a purified context, such as a gallery’s pristine white cube. Here, it is simply an object that has drawn the dog’s attention—inviting us to view the artwork from an animal’s perspective.

What emerges is a contrast between a cosmic, ambiguous art object and an everyday dog who stumbles upon something strange and thoroughly sniffs it. This is a theatrical, quasi-architectural installation that resembles a play—its main narrative centered on the relationship between humans and animals. It opens up a space of interspecies collaborations, a long-standing interest in Stasia Grishina’s practice.

Boris Klyushnikov