Exhibition of Alexandra Paperno "Self-love among the ruins"

State Museum of Architecture named after A.V. Shchuseva, Smart Art and Alfa-Bank present a personal exhibition of Moscow artist Alexandra Paperno “Self-love among the ruins”. The exposition will open in the Ruin outbuilding - the former stables building at the Talyzins estate on Vozdvizhenka, which fell into decay by the end of the 20th century and turned into a real ruin, which has been carefully restored with the conservation of all preserved structural and decorative elements, and since 2017 it has been operating as an exhibition space of the Museum of Architecture. This is the fourth project organized by Smart Art (represented by Anastasia Karneeva and Ekaterina Vinokurova) and aimed at supporting young Russian artists, two of which are supported by Alfa Bank.

The Ruin became for Paperno the starting point in the preparation of the project and the central plot around which the entire exhibition is developing. Ruin is not only about a disappearing or disappearing place, it is also the most important image for the culture of the New Age. She became a symbol of the concentrated past, melancholy and longing for the "golden age", expressed and cultivated the aesthetics of slow decay, and became almost the main backdrop for European painters of the 18th - 19th centuries. By the 20th century, the charm of ruin and ruin-as-an-idea has not disappeared anywhere, only the image itself and the specific “ruined” state extended not so much to architecture as to large ideological and political projects, and more broadly to a culture that repeatedly disintegrated and reassembled again.

Paperno just works with this cultural context, with situations when culture and civilization suddenly become a conditional set of strange rules, codes whose meaning has long been lost. She searches for these moments of breaking ties and with all tenderness and irony presents them, working with various artistic means.

So, for example, the graphic series on the ground floor is an image of most of the so-called “canceled constellations”. In 1922, the International Astronomical Union approved a modern list of 88 constellations; it was decided that the list would be final and no new constellations would be added. The number 88 has no cultural or scientific significance - it is random. Constellations not recognized by the International Astronomical Union have been canceled, they have more than 50 names on their list. Or that which seems like an ideal abstract painting, in which we are accustomed to peering, enjoying color and dynamics, in fact - triply gray luminaries (triptych “Gray Sun”).

On the third floor of the museum is a series of works on the theme of one of the most stable pillars of civilization - education, and in particular art, which has long turned into a set of repeating rituals, “productions”: in a series of photographic still lifes Paperno exhibits ideal compositions for a lesson in an art school it actually seems to be shards, the dry residue of a large culture.

The central element of the entire exhibition will be a broken column - a sculptural object piercing the three floors of the Ruins and representing a breaking column. The idea of work arose from a real story that happened to the French artist Gustave Courbet, when he, as the commissar for the culture of the Paris Commune, led the demolition of the Vendome column. The Paperno column is an ironic sign, an absolute change in relation to the ruin, which spreads horizontally, spreads, deepens and grows into the surface. Here, the white column sets the vertical axis as if of a toy decay, while the column - by the way, like the ruin - one of the most stable symbols of European culture, enters into a strange relationship with "Ruin", pulling together separate groups of works, making the space itself seem to shake itself and free yourself from the burden of meanings, your own history and “acquired” cultural contexts.

The general partner of the exhibition is Alfa-Bank, which for many years has been actively contributing to the development and promotion of contemporary art both in Russia and abroad. “The exhibition of Alexandra Paperno continues the tradition of supporting culture and art, which has existed from the very foundation of Alfa Bank. Taking part in such projects, we help promising Russian artists to realize their ideas and gain wide recognition, ”says Maxim Pershin, Member of the Management Board of Alfa-Bank. Earlier in 2017, with the support of the bank, the debut exhibition of Daria Irincheeva “Empty Knowledge” was held in Moscow.

The official opening of the exhibition is supported by the company Simple, which is responsible for the atmosphere and mood of the evening.

Curator of the exhibition: Ekaterina Inozemtseva.

About the artist:

Alexandra Paperno was born in 1978 in Moscow. In 2000, she graduated from Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York, where she studied with Dory Ashton, Robert Breer, and Hans Haake. The first solo exhibition was held in 2004 at the State Center for Contemporary Art (NCCA, Moscow). Among her last solo exhibitions: “Canceled Constellations” (Galerie Volker Diehl, Berlin, 2018), “On the Sixth Five-Year Sleep Structure” (Smena Center for Contemporary Culture, Kazan, 2015). Participant of numerous group exhibitions, including: Prague Biennale of Contemporary Art (2005), Dreaming Russia (Albertina Museum, Vienna, 2013), 5th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art “More Light” (2013), “Milk Without a Bottle” (Volga branch of the State Center for Contemporary Art, Nizhny Novgorod, 2014), “Cinema of the repeated film” (cinema “Circular cinema panorama”, VDNH, Moscow, 2015), “Observatory” (Special Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Nizhny Arkhyz, 2016), 4- Ural Industrial Biennale "New competently Th ”(2017),“ The First Triennial of Russian Contemporary Art ”(Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, 2017),“ Moenlight Sonata ”(Kunsthal 44Møen, Myung, 2018),“ Dress Rehearsal ”(Moscow Museum of Modern Art, 2018), “Change your mind? It’s okay! ”(MAMbo Museum, Bologna, 2018). Lives and works in Moscow.

Organizers:

The A.V. Shchusev State Museum of Architecture was established on January 1, 1934, simultaneously with the establishment of the USSR Academy of Architecture. The museum’s collection has more than 1 million storage units: these are architectural graphics, including the largest Russian and Soviet architects, a collection of dimensional drawings of monuments of Russian architecture, models and models, as well as paintings, fabrics and tapestries, unique furniture, prints and lithographs, gravestones, art metal, objects of decorative art. The museum’s photo library is one of the most extensive collections of photo materials on architecture and urban planning in the world. Today, the Museum of Architecture is located in the former Talyzin estate of the 18th-19th centuries, and includes three exhibition spaces: Anfilada (the main manor house), Sovereign Pharmaceutical Order (monument of the 17th century) and Ruin (outbuilding of the manor house).

Smart Art is a consulting company in the field of art, which works closely with Russian artists and is committed to the development of the contemporary art market. The goal of Smart Art is to increase the recognition of artists, for which the company offers comprehensive promotion programs and educational initiatives. Smart Art mediates between young artists and a new generation of collectors and provides new platforms for their interaction. Implemented projects: Sergei Sapozhnikov’s exhibition in the space of the Udarnik movie theater, a personal project of Daria Irincheeva at the Moscow office of Christie’s and Sveta Shuvaeva at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art.