from the series PETS), 2025
medical plastic
40 x 174 x 54 cm
Transcription from the audio guide written by Alina Kleytman:
It was a sunny day, the Diva, majestic as ever,
stood on the fourth hole—in a suit as white as a presidential lie.
She swung.
The club traced a perfect arc.
The ball flew.
And then—he appeared.
From deep within the earth, from beneath the freshly groomed grass,
something slow, creaky, and suspiciously sticky began to crawl toward the hole.
At first—just movement in the grass.
Then—a sound. And finally—Pedro.
He didn’t beg, didn’t plead, didn’t howl.
He simply licked his lips—and pressed against her foot.
More precisely—against her callus.
Pedro stretched out…
and began to gnaw.
Gently. Respectfully.
With reverence.
She didn’t pull her foot away.
She wasn’t afraid.
Thus Pedro found his mistress.
And the Diva—found the only one who touched her heels with genuine sincerity.
Since then, he follows her.
Sometimes disappears,
but as soon as the Diva walks a day in new shoes—
he crawls out of the shadows once again.
Description/commentary
Welcome to the Small Courtly Zoo of the Diva—a spectral menagerie of devotion and distance. In this series of five sculptural creatures, Alina Kleytman conjures imagined beings forged from medical plastic: skeletal, sinuous forms that echo the anatomy of animals while resisting classification. Each PET—LOLA, PEDRO, ELON, KONSTANCIA, and RAPHAEL—bears the presence of a relic, a heraldic sign, or a spectral mascot of a one-woman empire.Though they resemble fragile bone or fossil, these bodies are synthetic and untouchable, artificial extensions of care and control. Their curled tails and poised postures suggest silent gestures, signatures, or withheld stories—an allegorical bestiary where devotion is theatrical and irreversible. Haunting and ceremonial, these works draw on motifs of spectacle, submission, and imperial femininity. Kleytman’s creatures appear frozen in reverence, but beware: they may awaken.