DiDi Gallery and Hidden Place presented the first Moscow solo exhibition by St Petersburg artist Daniil Dage. The exhibition brought together new paintings, works on paper and sculpture.

These Are Just the Flowers sounds like a joke or a grand promise. The title describes what is on display and also suggests, as the Russian saying goes, that the best is yet to come.

Dage gives viewers the freedom to look at a painting without having to search it for hidden meanings, conflicts or symbols. Flowers, dogs, landscapes and household objects share equal standing. Nothing in this world takes precedence over anything else.

At the heart of his work is a trust in colour as a force in its own right. “New ideas start as patches of colour, and then I add lines to the composition. Sometimes the subject can change to suit the colours,” says Dage.

The installation at Hidden Place invites a literal reading of the title. The first room shows paintings of flowers that recall the beginning of Dage’s career, when he worked at the Peter the Great Botanical Garden in St Petersburg.

In the second room are scenes of dogs, his most recognisable subjects. Alongside the canvases are sculptures and a ceramic panel in which he takes his painting techniques into three dimensions. Aerated concrete blocks and tiles give him surfaces on which to try a new gesture.

The intense palette, deliberately simple forms and freely arranged space encourage an unhurried attention free of ironic distance. Familiar associations fall away. A flower need no longer stand for the fragility of life, a dog for loyalty or a house for comfort. Dage asks us what it might be like to look at our surroundings without the lens of anxiety, crisis or constant interpretation. He speaks of contemporary life through the experience of being present, and of the joy reality can offer when we learn to look at it afresh.

At Hidden Place, Dage asks us to reconsider the habit of waiting for something more important or more dramatic to come along. Waiting for the main event can keep us from seeing what is already before our eyes.

Exhibition dates: 12 September – 13 November 2026

Address: 34 Bolshoy Afanasyevsky Lane, Moscow

Visiting hours: Daily 10:00–20:00, Tuesdays 10:00–18:00. Free admission.