Unsportsmanlike Conduct is a solo exhibition by Sergey Nikitin, conceived as a total installation exploring the artist's relationship with the contemporary art system.
The project examines the external, documentary dimension of artistic practice as a form of necessary compromise between intuitive, living creative work and the expectations of the professional art world. At the core of Nikitin's practice lies the search for personal identity and the continual reconstruction of the self through fragments, layers, masks, and abstract personas.
His artistic method is defined by expressive material improvisation based on the direct translation of internal states into physical form. Oscillating between abstraction and figuration, chaos and structure, Nikitin's works emerge as open-ended traces of a performative process, remaining inherently subject to transformation.
The exhibition's spatial structure mirrors the portfolio format commonly used within the professional art field. The project originates from the contents of the artist's cloud storage, where bodies of work existed alongside an accumulated archive of "art documentation"—CVs, files, hyperlinks, application materials, and accompanying texts. Originally created for administrative and professional purposes rather than artistic expression, these materials have been recontextualized within the exhibition as subjects of artistic inquiry.
The content of each exhibition zone was shaped through a performative experiment carried out by the artist during the installation process. Remaining faithful to his working method, Sergey Nikitin transformed the preparation of the exhibition itself into a performance, resulting in a large-scale installation that reflects upon his own artistic practice and its position within the contemporary art system.
Unsportsmanlike Conduct ultimately serves as a manifesto of artistic autonomy. Rather than proposing an escape from institutional structures, the project asks where the boundary lies between adaptation and the loss of self. It suggests that genuine independence is achieved not outside the system, but through the capacity to remain true to oneself—to challenge inconvenient rules while continuing to participate in the game.