TATLIN NEWS №37

the original idea shows through. In this respect a project by Andrey Monastyrsky «The Darkness» is demonstrative. The installation represented a lit piece of paper pinned to the wall opposite the entrance. When you come closer, the light dies. The association is clear – the harder you look for the absolute, the farther you move from it. Alexander Ponomaryov presented his «Generator of nimbi» instead of the «Generator of faith», that was the name for his original and ironic installation of silver corrugated pipes puffing out circles of steam. Though the author is not alone in his irony. Valery Tsereteli presented an interactive object entitled «the Thought-Over Act», it is a stand with lamps in a form of candles characteristic of catholic cathedrals – you put a coin into a slot and the light is on. Some authors who are not that enthusiastic about special effects and equipment created concise works of didactic character. Valery Koshlyakov made a trolley bus with a dome rising up right from its roof out of cardboard and foam plastic. As it now gets clear, many authors associated the title of the exhibition with the religious subject, turning to its attributes and images. Imagine dead Christ Dmitry Gutov borrowed from the work of Mantegna for his fresco, enlarging his colleague’s work to the size of an advertisement poster, so that only the feet a part of the body fit onto the wall. The press release pretentiously claims that the exhibition will turn a new leaf in arts and «has to define the artistic landmarks in it for the nest 10 to 15 years». If we should believe this statement, then we will not see anything new in the artistic world in the coming years. It all turns out to be the well-known postmodernist game that the curator perhaps wanted to pick on and dispute its efficiency. But it is worth pointing out that in spite of Kulik’s desire to slip from the critics and nihilism to the faith into the absolute, the critical view, provocations, and doubt that artists keep producing still are logical and even essential attributes of the development of

our society. Without the doubts and objective appraisal the world of artistic ideas would be incomplete, and the lack of these would be a sign of decay. «Do I believe it? Do I believe the artist?» These are questions you ask yourself when leaving the «Vinzavod» halls. There is more about the ideas of the «I Believe» exhibition than the send to the search for positive belief into spiritual ideas, the projects remind us of the belief into arts, because without such faith new artistic landmarks are impossible. This exhibition is worth visiting even if simply to see one of the most commercially successful projects as well as to get acquainted with a fashionable place new for the artistic world, which may turn into the Mecca of contemporary art, having gathered the best art galleries in Moscow under its wings. The viewer should be thankful to this project already being discussed by the artistic society before it was opened, for the successful

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introduction of a wonderful field for artistic activities, where in the next 10 or 15 years a new leaf of contemporary arts history will be written down.

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