Roy [Swarm] — general view of the installation, 2026

Photographer: Varvara Toplennikova © Garage Museum of Contemporary Art

Nikolay Alekseev turns to the memories of his grandfather — a Soviet engineer whose main passion was beekeeping. The grandfather, as the artist claims, saw the world through the prism of the bee order, in which everyone contributes to the common cause. For Alekseev, his grandfather’s optics become a tool for analysing the Narkomfin Building, a house-commune — a Soviet utopia in concrete. As the artist himself says, "bees are always in the plural." The bee family becomes for him "a conceptual scheme for thinking about the connection between society and the individual."

Alekseev builds real wooden beehives and fills them with fragments of his family memory — watercolours and short videos based on the artist’s personal archive. As befits hives, they sound: you can hear them through the accompanying stethoscope — a specially recorded free improvisation by the musicians Oleg Dautov, Yaroslav Borisov and Arkady Pikunov, split into many fragments, "echoing the structure of the installation."

Thus the artist embodies the family myth of his grandfather’s trumpet playing — which, however, no one ever saw or heard. Alekseev seeks to feel the experience of living in a utopian world order, which in his eyes unites life in the Narkomfin Building, his grandfather’s story and the harmonious structure of a bee hive.

Maria Kalinina

Photographer: Varvara Toplennikova © Garage Museum of Contemporary Art

Roy [Swarm], single-channel video, colour, sound, 5'57", looped, 2026

Roy [Swarm], a hive with video, 2026

Roy [Swarm], single-channel video, colour, sound, 5'15", looped, 2026

Roy [Swarm], single-channel video, colour, sound, 5'07", looped, 2026

October 1993, watercolour on paper, 21×42 cm, 2026

The Trumpet, watercolour on paper, 21×42 cm, 2026

Dogs, watercolour on paper, 21×42 cm, 2026

Truck and Dogs, watercolour on paper, 21×42 cm, 2026

Volcano, watercolour on paper, 21×42 cm, 2026

Branch, watercolour on paper, 21×42 cm, 2026

Bird, watercolour on paper, 21×42 cm, 2026

Blot, watercolour on paper, 21×42 cm, 2026

Marbled Gull, watercolour on paper, 21×42 cm, 2026

Through an obstetric stethoscope you can hear the "sound" of the hives — a row of vibration speakers is installed in the walls of the tallest hive. Several pieces written and performed by Oleg Dautov, Yaroslav Borisov and Arkady Pikunov sound in different parts of the installation.

Roy [Swarm], interacting with the installation

Photographer: Darya Revina

Bouquet (one of the pieces sounding in the hives), Oleg Dautov, Yaroslav Borisov, Arkady Pikunov, sound, 7'24", 2026

The process of listening to the music inside the exhibition is deliberately complicated and fragmented, but the musical material turned out so substantial and self-contained that it was decided to release it as a separate album.

Public meeting of Nikolay Alekseev and Maria Kalinina, Narkomfin Building, 2026

Natasha Bernovik, “Memory of the Swarm”
Georgy Titov, “Nikolay Alekseev’s Installation — a ‘Swarm’ of Memories in the Communal Block of the Narkomfin Building” — Black Square
“A Good Example: ‘The Melting Diary. Spring Season’ at the Narkomfin Building” — Obedinenie (obdn.ru)
Varya Barkalova, “Don’t Miss: ‘The Melting Diary’ Project at the Narkomfin Building” — Mnenie (mnenie-red.ru)
Alina Streltsova, “The Melting Diary” — Iskusstvo magazine
Anastasia Khaustova, “‘You Always Want to Say More Than You Manage or Can’: an interview with Nikolay Alekseev”— SPECTATE

Works

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Design: Nikolay Alekseev's Workshop, 2024 / 2026

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Design: Nikolay Alekseev's Workshop, 2024 / 2026

Curatorial Projects

Works