June - August 2016
curator of the public-art program of the international festival "Access Point" in Saint Petersburg.
The public-art program projects:
"Paper ads" (15.06 – 07.08.2016)
Artist – Georgy Litichevsky
Place – bar “Barslona” and Rubinsteina street
Outdoor comic novels exhibition, pasted on the walls of one street. Comics by contemporary artist Georgy Litichevsky are devoted to urban legends and are presented as weekly updated wall newspapers. The absurdist stories invented by Litichevskiy consist of strange mixture where real historical figures meet literary heroes.
"Wooden cloud. The architecture of wishes" (13.07 – 07.08.2016)
Place – The Russian Academy of Fine Arts Museum, Fine Arts Academy's Garden
Artist - Martin Steinert (Germany)
The project consists of an exhibition at The Russian Academy of Fine Arts Museum and a large-scale installation, which the author creates in the Fine Arts Academy's Garden. Installation by Martin Steinert implants hybrid form of abstract concepts and reality into classical parkland. The wooden structure shaped as cloud symbolizes the emotions and desires architecture, which, similar to the process of construction of wood, which, similar to the process of construction of wood, requires grinding the elements of the intangible experience.
Contrasting the accuracy of the mathematical calculation of the architectural forms and the ephemeral substance of human hopes and desires the author works on the contrast of the monumental structure and the fragility of the material, liable to destruction in a natural environment.
"The Secret Garden" (23.07 – 7.08.2016)
Artists: Nadezhda Anfalova, Petr Bely, Semen Motolyanets, Denis Patrakeev, Alexander Podobed, “Sever 7” art-group.
Place – Anna Akhmatova Museum's garden
The open-air exhibition consists of art objects, installations, and performances by contemporary St. Petersburg artists who create their works in the public eye in a city park.
In Friedrich Nietzsche's work "On the Genealogy of Morality" philosophical effort are compared with the cultivation of the mysterious garden. "The Mysterious Garden" is an unexpected encounter with our own emotions, thoughts, and inner silence. "Our treasure is there, where stand the hives of our knowledge" (Nietzsche).
The project involves not only the philosophical concept interpretation by contemporary artists, not just an attempt of materialization of fruits of their own thoughts in the form of public art but also a new urban space mythologizing, namely the Anna Akhmatova Museum's garden, a new poetic reading of this historical place. Designed specifically for the project, installations become the visual poetry, expressed in a tangible form.
To infiltrate into the garden, hidden from the busy streets, to find the hidden access it is an experience that is comparable to the discovery of the unknown.
"TV Shop" (09.07 – 07.08.2016)
Artists: “Sever 7” art-group (Alexander Tsikarishvili, Nestor Engelke, Pet Dyakov, Anna Andrzhievskaya) and Romain Pérignon (France)
Place – “Bookvoed” book store
The project is the contemporary video artists intervention into the space of the bookstore, designed to disrupt the everyday vanity of the shopping area.
Advertising and relaxing views of wildlife often coexist. The nature images, which fills unsold advertising spaces, has acquired a property of reality simulation. Two videos presented in "Bookvoed" store, are dedicated to the relationship between man and nature, to the topic of destruction and peaceful coexistence.
The comic video "Warm arms" by the St. Petersburg art-group "Sever 7" parodies TV shop: it offers useless items, such as wooden weapon which cannot shoot.
Video "Lumberjacks" by French author Roman Perignon shows five fragments of an ordinary day of French woodcutter and it's five elements: forest, cold, fatigue, wood and fire. The artist speaks of harmony with nature and at the same time of its destruction by the human, who enjoys and destroys it. Reflections on he reckless trees felling are very relevant in the store, crowded by bright paper products.
"Sever 7" is the St. Petersburg community of young artists. The art-group operates in the field of public art. It founds the alternative exhibition spaces and participates in various festivals and biennales.
Roman Perignon is a young French video artist. He is a member of various video festivals and video art exhibitions in France. His work "Lumberjacks" was presented during "Night of Museums" project in 2016 in the Octave Cowell gallery in Metz.
"ZIKADEN" (23.07 – 07.08.2016)
Tonoptik art-group
Place - FabLab Polytech, Polytechnic University’s garden
Tonoptik project is a collaboration of media artists Yuri Tolstoguzov and Alexander Inkov. At the beginning of their careers team members were engaged in electronic music experiments and their performances were accompanied by generative video which responds to sound.
Audio and light installation by Tonoptik art-group is located in Polytechnic University’s garden. Sound component of the installation consists of complex and volumetric experimental composition, generated by more than thirty sound sources. They are located at different points in space as if it the park was filled by the unknown insects swarm. At night, visitors can see the visual component of the installation: every sound is accompanied by a corresponding light pulse, which visually emphasizes the scope and sense of rhythm.
