v i r t u a l e x i b i t i o n
Curator & original concept: Elina Shelmenkova
Design & visualisation: Artem Ogurtsov
Design & visualisation: Artem Ogurtsov
The exhibition project "Contemporary Baroque" involves the comprehension of the aesthetics of the excess within the framework of few temporal modalities. It is implemented as a 3-D gallery which recreates the atmosphere of the baroque basilica. The exposition is the reflection of how visual elements of the baroque era are transformed in time and space and how contemporary artists imagine the aesthetics of the excess and work in it. The curator aims to trace in the worldview of artists such tendencies as romantic outlook and thinking in expressive forms and the pretentiousness, grandeur, elitism, unnaturalness, contrast, dynamics and deformation among the specific features of art works. In addition, to demonstrate the fact that baroque as a phenomenon goes far beyond the era and style, becoming a kind of human constant, which affects the results of creativity. It is an invitation to talk about the continuity and transformation of visual elements and conceptual specific features of baroque art in the space of a baroque basilica, imitating the metaphor of a museum as a temple of art. From such artifacts as the Imaginary Prisons of Giovanni Battista Piranesi, similar to fantastic intricate baroque labyrinths, through the Paper Architecture of Ilya Utkin and Alexander Brodsky, inspired, among other things, by his works, the viewer will come to immersed in twilight baroque fountains of Alexander Shishkin-Hokusai, reviving the "frozen classics", and an imaginary of Valery Grikovsky, which is a large collection of rare paper artifacts.
The icons of Pavel Brat, hand-made from paper of pages of old books, cut into strips, woven into images, seem to exist on the edge of two eras — baroque and metamodern. These are both art objects and a harmonious continuation of the interiors of the baroque basilica.
Anton Chumak's project "Salt", the key fragments of which are involved in the exposition, about the cyclical nature of history, the repeated experiences of humanity of cultural decline, the inevitability of crises before the next reincarnation, the outcome of which is always unknown. It reminds us of the transforming baroque culture that does not leave us, flowing from century to century, which is close to the expectation of decay, "a feast in the time of plague" and the anticipation of a "new renascence ".
The multifaceted sculptures of the fine work of Dmitry Zhukov, combined with a multiplicity of shadows as a result of a special setting of light in the exhibition space allocated for them, reminiscent of an old crypt — the embodying of the composed luxury of the Baroque, projected into the XXI century.
The strict repetitive volumetric redundant geometry of sculpture and reliefs by Gerd Kanz is a modern interpretation of the German baroque.
The composition of the artworks of Artem Ogurtsov and Alexander Aksinin refers to impersonal neo-baroque urbanism and the search for beauty in it through the subjective.
Maurizio Bondesan's artworks are focused on the possibility of using the ellipse shape in baroque style. He started from the fact that translated from the ancient Greek "ellipse" means a flaw. The artist sees this flaw as a potential rather than a disadvantage.
