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The ministry of culture and mass communications of the Russian Federation
Federal agency on culture and cinematographies
National Center for contemporary art /Nizhni Novgorod/
with grant support of the Ford Foundation
Sergey Denisov and Vladislav Efimov
20 of July - 17 of August, 2006
The exhibition combines artists’ cooperative installations: “Specimens and aids”, 2004, which was first shown in “Mansarda” (Mansard) exhibition hall, NCCA, Moscow, and “Zanimatelnaya fisica” (Amusive physics), 2005. It was exhibited within the framework of the festival conducted by Pro Arte Institute “Contemporary Art in the Traditional Museum in the Memorial Museum of Leningrad Defence and Siege”, St-Petersburg, and also “Natural Stories” by Sergey Denisov, 2006, presented by “Anna Nova” Gallery, located in St-Petersburg, and “Simple things” by Vladislav Efimov, 2006, created specially for the Nizhniy Novgorod Arsenal.
“Specimens and aids” exhibition is entitled in honour of the first joint project carried out by two artists – Sergey Denisov and Vladislav Efimov. The project represents reciprocal (self)research of the two authors, who live in different cities, have different education and unlike artistic biographies.
Philosopher Elena Petrovskaya called Vladislav Efimov “an artist of one project”. This project is the research of the nature itself, of things and their essence, which reveals itself through creation of strange objects, the objects, that unite something “accidental”. Mummifying frogs, attaching wings to fragments of plaster sculptures, stuffing dried roses into tube envelopes, facing dentures with baroque moulding, Efimov enriches things with new qualities, new properties, plunging into the process of “creation”. As a rule, Efimov’s “monsters” are presented to the spectator only in the form of a photograph, the original mission of which, as we all know, is to imprint reality.
Sergey Denisov collects wings of dragonflies and empty frames of life, namely: cocoons of grubs, maggots and others, flower petals, for which he creates transparent “vaults”, sealing them into mica sheets, turning them into incredible “medieval” collage-herbariums. Photography is not alien to him either, but he shoots not the specially created objects, but those found somewhere, those, that surprise with their being outstanding, absurd, unreal. The remnants of insects and plants, signs, stickers, graffiti, left on the city walls by some unknown “designer”, all these things become archaeological discoveries for Sergey Denisov, they become subjects for classifying and “museumification”, or, as critic Andrew Fomenko has put it, for “mechanical intermediation”. Quite unexpectedly in his series “Natural stories” Denisov turned to large-scale painting. Alongside Denisov’s familiar characters, which unite the heritage of arthropods and lepidopterans with the plastic of “lianas” and hairy “plants”, there have appeared young men and girls with greased hair. Porcelain heads and toy bunches of flowers have found response in the labyrinths of naked fish insides, curious curves of forms, which hide themselves behind abdomens of amphibians and insects, disjointed and trying to overcome the disruption of the flesh.
The exhibition is likened to an alchemist’s laboratory or to that of a “crazy” scientist. On low tables “rubbish” in the shape of insects’ wings is carefully placed into “Petri dishes”. “Aids” are hung on the walls: casts of a heart, of the Earth, of kidneys, of frogs’ legs, of eyes and even a “magnet”. In the space of the hall there are photos of unusual interiors: nests of shelves, filled with all possible kinds of things, such as retorts, scales, objects in glass boxes, balloons, are hung to the ceiling. The interiors have turned out to be real studios of artists.
The interest for “Specimens and aids” is continued in “Zanimatelnaya fisica” installation, created after the same-name book by Jakov Perelman. The photos and video-films have reflected the experiments described by the great scientist and brought to life by artists. Studying art let the authors realise the life-long dream of those who strived to pull an egg into a kefir bottle.
“Specimens and aids” exhibition is all about similarity and difference. According to Aristotle’s logic difference is defined by similarity, and it is necessary to proceed from a close quality to find the difference. The spectator is offered to specify dissimilitude in the identity. Or vice versa: apply the experience of medieval nominalists who derived a united idea, basing from diversity of forms.
The exhibition narrates the story of an artist’s destiny, since he has chosen this profession, this artist is doomed have a shrewd sight, doomed to watching. The watching generates thought, the thought narrows to the ability of seeing similarities. The way of thinking brings forth a special way of life, that is why shots of the artists’ studios are included into the exhibition. Artists become subject to the spectator’s analysis, and the audience realizes that they are Twins, Clones.
July, 20ty, 2006 at 18.00
Nizhni Novgorod, the Kremlin, building 6
daily from 12.00 till 20.00, except Monday till August, 17
ph. +7 8212 39-10-23, ncca@art.nnov.ru, Olga Tatosiyan
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