Round Table: Something Important — exhibition view, 2016

Part of the stories were told specially for the exhibition; part were taken from open sources. At first glance the stories are random. There are examples from life, poems, a radio play, a recording of weather conditions on a distant planet. But what unites them at the round table? The single condition: a story, to be told, had to contain something important.

Around this "something" the invented narrative of the exhibition is constructed. It is deliberately fairy-tale-like and implausible. But waves cannot help but hide something when a ship sails across them with a prophetic oak in its hold and Argonauts on board.

At the centre of the exhibition are twelve stories told by different people or (as in the case of the Huygens probe) machines. Most of the stories were recorded over the two years preceding the exhibition and are presented at the show in the form of an audio sculpture.

The sculpture is a specially constructed table at which the artist assigned the storytellers' places. Microphones are installed on the table. To hear a story you must make a little effort: sit at the table in a storyteller’s place, lean in slightly and listen. The microphone to which a story was once told will open it to you again.

The Round Table, 250×250×75 cm, wood, microphones, sound, 2016

Microphones are placed around the perimeter of the table, but they do not receive sound — on the contrary, they sound like speakers. You can listen to twelve instructive stories from various cultural figures. The stories were contributed by: Ilya Dolgov, Maria Kalinina, Arseny Zhilyaev, Ekaterina Morozova, Vasily Subbotin, Ivan Gorshkov, Stepan Subbotin, Tatyana Stadnichenko, the Huygens probe, Konstantin Moshkin, Alexei Gorbunov and Nikolay Alekseev.

The painting consists of twenty-one triangles and represents a Dymaxion projection (Fuller projection). That is, it can potentially fold into a sphere. On the surface of this sphere, clouds are drawn and painted over with white, and over them "amazing precipitation" is applied, inspired by the stories of the round table.

Amazing Celestial Phenomena, 300×180 cm, drywall, wood, acrylic, pencil, ink, 2016

A common palace architectural motif: one lion plays with a ball, the other sleeps. If a sculpture has historical value, for the winter a small house is made for it, protecting the stone from moisture and temperature changes. A lion in such a house becomes at once amusing and lonely, like a snail in its shell.

For the exhibition I made small copies of the lions and placed them at the entrances to the halls so that they would guard the show.

Sleeping Lion, 150×20×20 cm, plaster, plastic, found tube, inkjet print, 2016

Playing Lion, 150×20×20 cm, plaster, plastic, found tube, inkjet print, 2016

The pictures in the exhibition echo one another, the stories of the round table, the video and the objects in the show. Amusingly, the light paintings are made on drywall and repeat the material and texture of the walls on which they hang.

Portholes, 30×20 cm and 30×30 cm, drywall, wood, acrylic, 2016

Reservoir, 100×120 cm, drywall, wood, acrylic, pencil, ink, 2016

Bowl, 180×110 cm, drywall, wood, acrylic, pencil, ink, 2016

Playing Lion, 60×80 cm, drywall, wood, acrylic, pencil, ink, 2015

Armchair, 40×60 cm, drywall, wood, acrylic, pencils, ink, 2016

Ribbon, 40×60 cm, drywall, wood, acrylic, pencils, ink, 2016

Slabs, 40×30 cm, drywall, wood, acrylic, pencil, ink, 2016

Drains, 30×40 cm, drywall, wood, acrylic, pencil, ink, 2016

The Head Wrapped in a Snake, 75×35×45 cm, found book and found drawing, display case, typographic tubes, large-format print, 2016

In the display case is a book on Aegean art. On the page with the figurine whose head is wrapped in a snake, I found a small sheet. On it, the book’s former owner had redrawn the figurine from the catalogue.

This is a video found on YouTube by the user Mikhail Gen. Original title and description: View of the coast of Ussuri Bay from a boat in August 2012 A view of the coast of Ussuri Bay from a boat, August 2012. A place not far from Shamora Bay.

The video is a report of a trip along Ussuri Bay. At some point something goes wrong with the image. It begins to double, the sound disappears, the picture starts to fall apart into pieces, and the traveller becomes a hostage of digital patterns. The artist creates a video loop, making the journey endless, the traveller’s torment even more unbearable, and the happiness of watching almost tangible.

Cats, the Twelve Labours of Hercules and the Ho Chi Minh Trail, Liya Adashevskaya, Dialogue of Arts, 2016
Nikolay Alekseev ‘Round Table: Something Important', Olga Danilkina, AroundArt.org
Newts and Journeys, Marina Antsiperova, Kommersant newspaper No. 97, 03.06.2016, p. 15

2016 — Sensual Experiments (curated by Andrei Misiano) — New Holland, St. Petersburg
2015 — So Much One Wants Simple Words — H.L.A.M. Gallery, Voronezh

2024 — Vertigo — Cosmoscow, Moscow, Russia
2021 — VLADEY: Collector’s Choice — Moscow, Russia

Works

Curatorial Projects

Design: Nikolay Alekseev's Workshop, 2024 / 2026

You can support our educational projects [on Boosty]

Contacts:

Contacts:

You can support our educational projects [on Boosty]

Design: Nikolay Alekseev's Workshop, 2024 / 2026

Curatorial Projects

Works