The name Kotyacoin derives from the cat Kotya (Котя in Russian) which was a central figure in many of my father Boris Berger‘s artworks.
Boris Berger was a representative of the contemporary Russian art industry who tried to creatively make sense of trends in society, such as the Internet’s excessive fascination with pets, including cats.
In 2007, Berger told “Афишa” that he came up with the project “after attending some big biennale at the Central House of Artists” (ЦДХ), where he realized, “how glamour and kitsch are now conquering culture”. Kotya either reveals all the contrived pathos of the work because you can immediately see that Kotya is alive and everything else is sucked out of thin air, or he brings out the seriousness of what’s going on”.