VIBE Russian Art Show

September, 2008

Louise T Blouin Institute, London

Curator: Victoria Golembiovskaya

 

Theoretically, presentation is dictated by the exhibition space. Yet soulless, white-walled showrooms are quite unsuitable for exhibitions and can be fatal for art itself – everything seems ripped out of context and devoured by neutral white space. We need a different sort of exhibition environment: one with a harmonious atmosphere that places works within a broader context. VIBE is a prototype of this sort of environment.

The interior exhibition space is organized traditionally. Down below: Water – a netherworld with its own deep, soothing force. Water is the mother of Earth, from which all life derives. It is life’s Past. Its Present resides within the temple of modernity, where the altar offers up the possibility of communicating with the transcendental. Above this comes a higher, sacred space, a kind of portal through which one can ascend to Heaven.

Individual works, sending out their own vibrations, come together to form a single picture representing a specifically Russian, or Eastern, idea of the Sacred. Western society has become more secular; sacred space has been “conquered” and can no longer stir up fear and trembling.
 
This exhibition can be considered as a single installation, immersing visitors in an underlying spirituality, with the waters of secrets and the vibrations of the sacred.
 
Contemporary art is sacred for Western man. Monumental events – Christo’s wrapping of the Reichstag, for instance – are like latter-day medieval pilgrimages, uniting millions of people with the same impulse, spurning the comforts of Western society and sleeping on the ground. Just as we speak about representation in contemporary art, we can speak about the possibility of mapping out sacred spaces, or hierotopy.
 
Alexander Ponomarev
Narcissus
Alexander Ponomarev's video installation Narcissus, based on the familiar myth of a man so faultlessly beautiful that he kept searching for his own image in the water, reveals the interaction of fluid and surface. It also broaches the categories of Time, because the river into which Narcissus peers is the River of Time. Narcissus is looking at the Present – separated from the Past and Future by a mere ripple.
 
Hermes Zygott
Reanimated Icons
Searching for one’s own image, or soul, is like searching for paradise, whether Eden or Sukhavati. Hermes Zygott's light-box installation is based on old, badly damaged Orthodox icons beyond repair. These reanimated, re-painted, sacred objects are printed on light-boxes that change color simultaneously, and are presented within a black marquee.
Icons depend on the sacredness of their surroundings and how they are honored. If a layer of the icon’s image is understood as the icon's conscience, then the panel becomes its subconscious, imprinted with the events of the human subconscious. In other words, the icon painter invests it with all of his own internal impulses arising from the depths of his subconscious. He thus makes a humble confession before the icon and, in this way, the sacred body of the icon becomes impregnated with the inner substance of a man practicing his religion.

Elizaveta Berezovskaya
Light
Light is both an installation and object, generating its own homogenous space and field of radiation. If we talk about an image of light, we are talking above all about a beam dispatched into a dark space, slicing through it. In churches, in certain conditions, we see shafts of light streaming down from the arches. In the forest we can see slanting rays of sunlight peeping through the leaves, or suddenly emerging through fog or dust. This is a drawing-out and abstracting of this fundamental, primary element of life: a demonstration of the might of Apollo… a poetic gesture taken to the limit, as when Vereshchagin began painting only portraits of the Sun itself. “Light” belongs to the category of ingenious things that aim to imagine the impossible.

Sergei Anufriev
Pleroma
Pleroma (from the Greek Πλήρωμα, meaning fullness or multitude) denotes an understanding of Gnostic philosophy based on heavenly spiritual beings and zones. It is a realm similar to a palisade: a border between our world and a higher plane where God delivers pronouncements. It is its own type of optical lens or show-window, displaying information from above. These higher beings are not able to pass on information to us directly, and we do not have the power to apprehend it. For this, there exists a system of "translation": Pleroma.
This work derives from a vision of this realm and the special signs within it. These are the primary semantic designs seen in meditation. Above all, the Anufriev's Pleroma installation appeals to a basic level of consciousness – awareness of ideas and communication. After answering the initial question What is represented? certain patterns begin to form, composed of various elements. Each pattern is the start of forming a sentence – the basic element on which vocabulary, grammar and syntax are built.

Sergei Bugaev Afrika & Sergei Anufriev
“This work was created entirely spontaneously – the result of a happening,” reveals Anufriev. It turned out so well because it is rooted in its actuality, in its changing structure. Afrika and I were walking around the VDNKh exhibition park in Moscow, and climbed up the monument of the Worker & Kolkhoznitsa [female collective-farm worker]. We discovered a door between the kolkhoznitsa’s legs, found a ladder and, after managing to get inside the sculpture after a heroic effort, broke the door off of its hinges. It came crashing down and we carried it off like a trophy back to St Petersburg.
The monument served as the basis for our theories of “Donaldestruction.” The door into the kolkhoznitsa was like the hymen of Mother Earth. Tearing it from its hinges was like marking the end of the sacredness of the USSR, and the opening of the sacred in the wider world. There are common roots of a worldwide system of what we would call “the sacred,” because in every society we find sacred symbols that influence mass consciousness, whether they be Lenin or Mickey Mouse.

VIBE Special Events
Introductory premiere of Hermes Zygott’s (the founding member of the  Orchestra of Unknown Instruments (ONI) Modern version of 'Monteverde vespro di Santa Maria' 1610 which will be staged at le Châtelet Theater de Paris.
Documentary translations about 'I believe' show curated by Oleg Kulik at the Vinzavod Gallery in Moscow as a part of the Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art. Some think the show was among the most important exhibits of contemporary art since the Soviet collapse. The exhibit aimed to recover a sense of belief or faith from what he calls the dogmatic contexts of communism and religion.

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About

 

The RNA Foundation is a cultural platform that aims at promoting established as well as up and coming Russian artists and creative individuals. Founded by Victoria Golembiovskaya, the RNA utilizes its wide reaching connections to provide support and exposure to artists, facilitating their relations with curators, dealers and critics. With experience in art management and curating Golembiovskaya established RNA in order to contribute to the Russian art education system, diversifying its narrow scope and implementing a wider, international engagement.

 

By providing space and means for artists to develop their practice, our goal is to establish a constantly expanding and developing network, where the Russian contemporary art scene can be introduced to a wider art market, galleries and institutions across the globe. To do so, an exploration of new ideas is needed, as well as an active expanding of boundaries of the media available. This progressive outlook allows us to bring out the collaborative potential of not only museums and galleries we work with, but also of other foundations, auction houses and art institutions.

 

One aspect of our future projects is to establish a series of workshop spaces that will provide an interdisciplinary environment for Russian artists from all backgrounds and with varying degree of experience. Serving as a meeting point and an exchange ground for cultural capital, these work and gallery spaces would also function as lecture theatres for educational purposes and public events. We also plan to create residencies between Russian and international artists, where we hope to instigate a much needed cross-fertilization and collaboration.

 

However in order to realize such varied projects, we often need financial support whether from an individual, patron, trust or company. Philanthropy and charity are important factors in realizing any cultural project and we would be happy to work with you, directing the need of social engagement and cultural support through RNA’s activities.

 

Active since 2008, RNA Foundation is an exciting, passionate organization that has exhibited and curated around the world, devoting our focus on international artistic progression.

Art Advisory

 

Before launching the RNA Foundation in 2008, Victoria Golembiovskaya worked as a film producer and artistic director, gaining a vast experience in art management and further expanding her knowledge of history of art, which has graned the RNA foundation an original place and point of view within the international art community.


Our service is second to none; we provide consultations for the establishment and maintenance of private collections, as well as for large-scale curatorial projects. We have the contacts and resources to get a hold of rare works from all over the world for both private and public clients. In the last three years alone the RNA Foundation has produced shows in London, Moscow and Venice, handling valuable works in unprecedented environments, with a priority in presenting them in unique yet elegant manner. While maintaining a high standard and a rigorous vision we tailor our services to the client.


As a consultant, we go further than most agencies, providing legal advice for sales, organizing transportation of art works, and of course taking care of the acquisition process, operating on a strictly confidential basis.

CONTACTS

 

Katerina Tesa
+7 926 2497367
kate@rnafoundation.com