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Apocalypse


Georgy Ostretsov

Opening 26 November, 2009

M&J Guelman Gallery at Winzavod


An artist, much like a philosopher, discovers the meanings of things so that man might understand himself better and become free, i.e. be saved from the decay which plagues him. Seraphim Sarovsky had said, "Save yourself and thousands will save themselves around you"; this phrase of the great Russian saint became very popular, almost entering everyday parlance. I reinterpreted it and transposed it into the plane of contemporary art. Since in the postmodernist situation, the object of art does not exist, it is a phenomenon of the most absurd of markets – the art market. The artist's identity is torn between materials: an ephemeral reality and a very concrete reality, death. People have been embalming the dead for ages because it is only after death that real life began for the deceased. Life as preparation for death is also self-embalment.

Creating that which is spiritually elevated, the artist moves the viewer away from things earthly, i.e. from death, giving him the extreme freedom to become dead to the sensual world and be reincarnated in the spiritual world. The work of art here is only a means for uniting thought and will to that end. Self-sacralization, of course, is a self-portrait; the artist strives to leave a memory of himself, to understand himself, and through this, understand thousands of others. All of humanity is encapsulated in one Adam, which is to say also in me. We, who have been created in the image and likeness and who carry the image within themselves do not have the slightest idea about the likeness. This is a mystery – having solved it, we will be saved from death. I am the memory of Adam and his crime, i.e. I am a mortal memory, which is why I exhibit my image and body parts as a reminder about the locusts, which God sent to put sense into the Egyptians; about the copper snake, raised high by Moses to save the tribe of Israel from an invasion of creeping snakes; about Adam, who will be freed from beneath the crushed gates of Hell; and about the global system of rule of the New Government.

Georgy Ostretsov
Translation: Ksenya Gurshtein


The exhibition is open 26 November – 18 December, 2009




18.11.2009
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