OLGA TOBRELUTS is an adherent of Neo-Academism. "Oh," she laments, "modern life is sordid in comparison to the fabled past." Tobreluts yearns for old Pisa, before modern buildings intruded on the Renaissance landscape.	Tobreluts with a lute in 19th-century Pisa (from 1991 series, Empire Reflections)
Neo-Academism is locked in battle with modernism. The struggle is epic, as earth shaking as the combat between classical heroes and mythological beasts.	Russian Strongman (Hercules) Slays the Bull of Modernism

In a new series of contemporary classics, which will be shown in New York next February, Tobreluts has recast popular figures of antiquity as fashion icons. These advertised images attract a band of followers, which Tobreluts links to corresponding Greek cults.

Greek Gods as Fashion Heroes: (click on the logos to see enlarged views)
	Apollo, acclaimed for his beauty, wears Moschino. His is the cult of camp, of kitsch.	D+G is symbolized by the god Hermes, who in mythology protects people who like easy money, such as drug dealers. You know they worship Hermes by the clothes they wear.		Aphrodite, Fashion Hero

Tobreluts at work on a computer collage.
Excerpt from the article "Unmasking" by Olessia Tourkina