Exhibitions
Mikhail Lezin
Noise music
24 April – 03 June
Mikhail Lezin is famous not only for his paintings. The artist is also a prominent figure of experimental music scene. He works in the area of noise music (genre of music that employs noise as a musical resource) and his achievements in this field are as impressive as his artistic biography. Among Lezin’s recent most notable accomplishments are participation in numerous group exhibitions in various Russian cities, including Moscow Biennial of Contemporary Art, and his solo show “Boom!” which took place at Erarta gallery in New York in 2012.
Maksim Kayotkin
Destination Point
15 of March – 22 of April
Kayotkin’s contemplative landscapes glorify the time stopped and celebrate the unbounded spaciousness of nature. His works depict Time in an unusual role of contemplation object. It feels like someone pressed the “stop” button and everything halted. There is no wind, no sound, and no smell. His industrial-scapes, on the other hand, show the Time in its destructive action.
Valeriy Barykin
Soviet Pin-up
25 January – 25 February
Barykin works with a tradition of soviet erotica which has typical features of classic American or Italian ones. Re-examination of canons of this frivolous genre has brought special meaning to Barykins’ artworks. The artist ironically depicts soviet man who has not been used to dealing with these flirty and ambiguous situations on daily basis. Unlike classic pin - up, it is not the girls but men who are stuck in this unusual kind of reality. Moreover, this unique idea makes works by Valery Barykin deeply engaged with psychology.
Aleksey Chizhov
Fields of peace
14 of December – 13 of January
“Fields of peace” project consists of works which are united through a common theme of dreaming. The main work of the exhibition is a phantasmagorical canvas which is a dark allegory with a taste of cyberpunk where lonesome naked young men are wondering spellbound through the endless field of poppies. In a way, it be interpreted as an allegory for collective slumber of the generation of blogs and social networks.
Dmitry Shorin
We are (not) alone.
01 November – 10 December
Over the last few years Dmitry Shorin had reached a high level of recognition- he participated in a large number of solo and group exhibitions held in the prestigious galleries of Saint- Petersburg and Moscow, and also took part in the international biennale and art fairs. Exhibition “We are (not) alone” by Dmitriy Shorin includes works from different years and also paintings created specially for the project. His works are easily recognized- not only because of the recurring themes of girls, planes and sky, but rather due to a characteristic atmosphere of uneasiness and psychological eroticism.
Fyodor Krushelnitsky
Figures of time
15 September – 16 October
Fyodor Krushelnitsky is both sculptor and philosopher. His monumental sculptures are short-spoken and made in the style of industrially socialist epos. The majority his sculptures work as a memorial of Soviet era and pay a tribute to heroic pilots, sailors’ wives, students of workers’ courses and sportsmen. We can distinguish the same characters not only in a stout bronze sculptures, but in the drawings as well, that are full of lambent humour. All the works are filled with meaning by the sculptor, who adds the distinctive symbols to each character like it is done in the ‘St.Andrew the First – Called’ or ‘Sigmund Freud’ sculptures.
Ivan Lukinykh
Streets. Singularity Progresses.
03 August – 10 September 2012
Following the rules of photo-realists, Ivan’s paintings are emotionless and deprived of the presence of the artist’s personality, apart from the signs of extreme meticulousness and stubbornness evident in his artistic manner. Contrary to the methods of the classical figures of this genre, Lukinykh does not use a video-projector but instead constructs his compositions based on the film-camera snapshots.
Evgeniy Zaremba
Parallels
06 July - 30 July 2012
Paintings and drawings of Evgeniy Zaremba should not be regarded as a simple combination of strictly rhythmical, decorative compositions and delicate fusion of colours. Themes of self-knowledge, of Life and Universe continually run through Zaremba’s works. His “dialogs” with Eternity and Universe are based on ethereal visual associations and parallels of consciousness. Each of his compositions is an artful attempt to reflect on and comprehend his idiosyncratic impressions of the outer and inner world.
Veronika Rudyeva-Ryazantseva
The Beehive. Media Project (video installation, painting)
24 May - 2 July 2012
Erarta St. Petersburg is proud to open its summer season with a unique media project by Veronica Rudyeva-Ryazantseva, entitled ‘Beehive’. The project is particularly poignant reminder of the current circumstances facing the contemporary woman in popular culture, as well as raising important questions of vanity, beauty and aesthetic hierarchy. A particular recurring theme which can be noted throughout the exhibition is that of the what is deemed to be a minor action of blow-drying one’s hair. This image is usually presented to the viewer in a somewhat advertising manner, turning the art works into a contemporary commentary of this quotidian ritual.
Press Release
Pavel Grishin
Сurriculum vitae
22 March - 22 May 2012
Erarta is proud to present the first solo show of Grishin’s works, which mainly focus upon the theme of ornamentation. This considerable body of works allows the viewer to look at European culture of artistic adornment as if through a filter inspired by the dipsomaniac works of William Burroughs. Grishin is able to instill classical forms into florid expression, which he has made his own. Hence, one of Grishin’s perfectly circular art objects can witness the inclusion of a bright chaos of fluid acrylic, which gives it the same rhythm and energy as graffiti would.
Pavel Babenko
The Exodus from still life
03 February - 11 March 2012
Krasnodar artist Pavel Babenko has been proclaimed as the ‘Russian King of Still Life’, which is what spurred Erarta to collaborate with him on this new exhibition. This particular alliance has allowed for the merging of boundaries previously unthought-of, which has consequently manifested in a presentation titled “The Exodus from still life”. Within the exhibition, Babenko develops the themes of war and apocalypse, whilst simultaneously managing not to lose his infamous sense of artistic humor.
Nikolay Kopeikin
Magic Federation
16 December - 29 January 2012
New paintings by Kopeikin depicting the fantastical reality fo the Magic Federation. Painting the "realities of the inhabitants of the Magic Federation," Kopeikin presents a discoudent non-state system with an intractable calculus population and an equally eclectic population.
When asked to comment on the overall project, Kopeinkin noted that in his intention behind the exhibition was to adequately represent this metaphysical ‘Magic Federation’ through the medium of oil on canvas. According to Kopeikin, ‘The Magic federation’ is a discordant non-state system with an incalculable population, whose ethnicity is unclear. This extreme heterogeneousness of the Magic Federation is the result of the inhabitatants’ deeply ingrained mythological fantasies, which is essentially formed their own existence. Hence, the snowmen, mermaids, animals and insects almost live in an entirely-self-caused universe of illusion.
Vladimir Ovchinnikov
13 October – 7 November 2011
Erarta presents an exhibition of paintings by Vladimir Ovchinnikov, who was one of the active members of the Leningrad underground non-conformist movement of the 1960s and 1980s. One of the most noteworthy aspects of Ovchinnikov’s oeuvre is the fact that, due to the rigid institutional training, which was carefully monitored by the communist government, Ovchinnikov decided to pursue self-study. From the 1970s onwards, having completed his own self-instructed tutelage, he went on to attract foreign collectors. The mid-1980s saw numerous solo exhibitions of the artist’s work being held in the United States, France, Germany, China and other countries, which signified just how far he moved on from being a mere heretical artist.
Aleksandr Kosenkov
Dudes on “Chumikan”
16 September – 2 October 2011
The autumn season in Erarta opens with Aleksandr Kosenkov`s solo exhibition “Dudes on Chumikan”. The Novosibirsk artist presents twenty paintings composed between years 2005-2011. The exhibition title honors one of Kosenkov’s paintings, of which the subject matter is the sea- a theme which he explores continuously throughout the exhibition. The artworks are marked with a constant drive of renewal showing quotidian scenes such as a ship docking or an ordinary houseplant in a red pot. The images erupt with a coloratura musical sense of intense reds, blues and greens. Inspired by everyday objects, the artist imbues shapes with such vibrancy that they appear to burst from the canvas.
Maria Safronova
The Life Environment
24 June — 11 September 2011
Maria Safronova, the graduate of the Moscow State Academic Art Institute opens her first solo exhibition in St. Petersburg. Urban realities — a series of whimsical, yet disconcerting subway tunnels, spill over into haunting surreal scenes in the spirit of Victor Pelevin’s literary works. The works presented at Erarta attempt to create a mythological representation of the structure of our universe: the underworld is a surreal underground; the earth's surface is our social everyday life, whilst the upper world is a mysterious and coveted space. The artist offers us her vision of how mankind develops these worlds, attempting to turn each one into a hospitable environment.
Konstantin and Ekaterina Grachyovs
Surveilling the Phenomena
20 May – 20 June 2011
Erarta presents a series of works from this artistic duo, which explores their familiarities trough the genres of still life and landscape. Works by Konstantin Grachyov, at first glance, match up to the literal meaning of the idiom, which was chosen as the title of the exhibition. His still-lifes are certainly tangible projections of the artist's careful analysis of items in a literal, physical sense of the word. In contrast with her partner, Ekaterina Grachyova is inextricably linked to the personages of her canvases. The sentiments of these ‘personages’ are either directed into the void, or are fixed on what is missing from the reality on the canvas.
Yuri Tatyanin
The Dead Hare: All We Got
15 April – 16 May 2011
Yury Tatianin – the Lipetsk artist, who is well-known for his bright and ironical paintings is fulfilling his ambition in the compilation of his first solo retrospective in St. Petersburg. The popular mythology and culture of Yury Tatianin – an improbable mixture of the high and the low – is such that the former seems incomprehensible and the latter marginalized. The artist's favorite heroes include Malevich, van Gogh, Joseph Beuys, and certain well-known Russian television characters.
Maria Garkavenko
PRAXIS
15 April – 16 May 2011
Maria Garkavenko currently lives and works in St. Petersburg and the Crimea. Consequently to graduating from the St. Petersburg Art and Industry Academy from the department of applied arts and textiles, she became a member of the Creative Union of Artists in 2006. The “Praxis” Series is based entirely on the artist’s personal and intuitive experience. Here, the real subject of the works, once it has come under scrutiny, emerges as the exploration of human soul; and the overall purpose of the series is spiritual ascent. According to the artist, progress is possible only along this path.
Vladimir Migachev
Quiet Life
11 March – 11 April 2011
Vladimir Migachyov combines principles of realistic landscape painting with a neo-expressionistic approach within his works. The main subject for his paintings is the Land, the Land which holds its people. Migachev works in a specific style that combines a graphic monochromatic look with brutal textures of coal, soil, concrete and conglomerated objects. The artist brings the basic components of landscape, earth, sky, water and trees to the state of laconic formula and symbols.
Yevgeny Ukhnaliov
The Door in the Wall
21 January – 13 February 2011
Yevgeny Ukhnaliov's solo shows are seldom, as shown by the fact that the previous one took place in 2001 in the State Hermitage Museum. This is a unique show in that the retrospective combines paintings from private collections, which were created during the last decade as well as early drawings which date back to the 1940, alongside recent works. This exhibition is in honor of the artist’s 80th birthday. Ukhnaliov is an exceptionally well-known and respected contemporary artist, whose fame in Russia is extensive.
Gennady Zubkov
Form plus Color
10 December 2010 – 16 January 2011
Erarta Galleries presents “Form Plus Color” exhibition of Gennady Zubkov’s works in honor of the artist's 70’s birthday. The retrospective shows more than forty works, which date back to diverse periods of the artist’s creative life. Formal artistic education at the Herzen Academy of Art not only gave Zubkov fantastic classical training as an artist but also presented him with an incredible opportunity of establishing a close relationship with Vladimir Sterligov (1904 – 1973), who became his close friend and mentor. Sterligov himself was personally taught by Kazimir Malevich, who not only aided him in early figurative works but also in rigid philosophical context, which Malevich himself deemed to be vital for any artistic pursuit in general. Subsequently to this personal pursuit, in 1977 Zubkov derived a new painting technique called ‘form creating form’ which he applied to his still lifes and landscapes. This unique and historically pivotal technique can be reviewed and studied within the collection of Zubkov’s works which are present in Erarta galleries.
Press Release
Vladimir Dukhovlinov
Entropy
4 November – 5 December 2010
Entropy (from the Greek ἐντροπία - “turn”, “change”) in the natural sciences is a measure of the deterioration within a system or in nature. The title of the exhibition echoes the theory of inevitable entropy extension, which states that any act contributes towards ‘Universal Chaos’ as it approaches doomsday. The term entropy is both scientific and philosophical, according to Dukhovlinov. “It (entropy) signifies the systematic ataxia, which consists of the diverse elements; the accumulation of the various substances, existing in chaos and possessing diverse properties that come to unite the system.” Both anarchy and order play a key role in Dukhovlinov’s paintings, the majority of which are abstract compositions.
Press Release
Vyacheslav Mikhailov
The Russian North
8 October – 31 October 2010
This season sees Erarta present an exhibition, ‘The Russian North’ by Vyacheslav Mikhailov – one of the most famous Saint-Petersburg artists. The title of the exhibition does not refer to a geographical location, but rather it encompasses the cultural, everyday, and philosophical life of the region. Here, Mikhailov presents his own view of the “severe beauty”, which is represented through villages, churches, graveyards, Old Ladoga, and Solovki’s cathedral. A unique atmosphere is created by the artist, which is untypical for landscape painting. The reason as to why this particular subject matter was chosen by the artist is because according to him, this domain is where the true, original and indigenous Russia can be found. The area bypassed the Tatar Mongol Yoke invasion as well as Nazi occupation and this, according to Mikhailov contributes to its harmonious nature.
Press Release
Aleksandr Zagoskin
Definitions of time
03 September — 04 October, 2010
Aleksander Zagoskin's exhibition “Definitions of Time” was conceived as an attempt to represent the category of time through an artistic medium. This category remains a topic of contemplation for philosophers and a favorite theme of fantasy literature because it remains something which each of us can sense the existence of, but cannot grasp it or view it as a whole. It is difficult to formulate thoughts about time and to portray time in images, yet it is possible to experience time reading literature, watching films or plays, or listening to music. Painted images do not develop over time. However, metaphors of time, as well as the spirit of an epoch can be portrayed through painting. Aleksander Zagoskin is a professional artist in the film industry, and it is evident in his paintings. Often, interesting ideas appear on the border line of different genres, that is how Zagoskin approaches the category of time.
And...Meninas
18 June — 16 July, 2010
The year of 2010 witnessed the 350rd anniversary of the death of Diego Velázquez and hence this is what propelled Erarta to hold a curatorial exhibition on the theme of his most famous work “Las Meninas”. “Las Meninas”, as translated from Spanish means “The Maids of Honor” and is considered as Velazquez’s most captivating work not just due to its subject-matter, but also the way in which it was executed. The exhibition attempts to show the ways and means in which the composition is able to transcend time and culture and still inspire contemporary artists of Russia.
Nikolay Sazhin
By Default
20 May – 17 June 2010
Erarta presents an exhibition by Nikolay Sazhin, one of the most salient Saint-Petersburg artists. The aggregation of works has been titled ‘By Default’, as they represent the existential issues that dwell in the mind of the artist: love, death, decay and resurrection. Sazhin felt as if these fundamental emotional responses will always manifest within him as if by default, even when he is devoid of other characteristics. These particular mental states are identifiable by any creative person, and according to Sazhin, it is the artist who attempts to explain these phenomena through the medium of art.