55° 45′ 20.83″ N, 37° 37′ 03.48″ E

Alexey Belyaev-Gintovt

March 31 — April 15, 2012
Triumph gallery

The project "55° 45′ 20.83″ N, 37° 37′ 03.48″ E" is essentially a continuation of Alexey Belyaev-Gintovt's previous project, "Parade," which has evolved toward a total future.

Of the 21 images, only three are made using the familiar palm printing technique. These are the so-called "entrance group." In the first, scaly gates, reminiscent of the Kremlin gates, open mysteriously—via some magical orbs and a spiral reminiscent of the teleporter from Soviet sci-fi films. Before them stands a guard: humans and zoomorphs holding halberd-blasters. The second two are zoomed-in images, multiple magnifications of the guards, their large half-length portraits. Even without seeing the remaining 18 images, it’s clear that Belyaev-Gintovt has given expression to something that has interested him his entire life—theatricality and cinematography.

55°54′26.23″ N, 37°33′41.22″ E
2012
Wood, composite, varnish,
digital printing
UV-curable inks
100 × 150 cm

Of the 21 images, only three are made using the familiar palm printing technique. These are the so-called "entrance group." In the first, scaly gates, reminiscent of the Kremlin gates, open mysteriously—via some magical orbs and a spiral reminiscent of the teleporter from Soviet sci-fi films. Before them stands a guard: humans and zoomorphs holding halberd-blasters. The second two are zoomed-in images, multiple magnifications of the guards, their large half-length portraits. Even without seeing the remaining 18 images, it’s clear that Belyaev-Gintovt has given expression to something that has interested him his entire life—theatricality and cinematography.

The image-sets resemble screenshots from a futuristic film like Lang’s Metropolis, only even less adapted for living creatures. It’s noteworthy that the city’s population is critically low for such a large project. It seems as if no one lives here at all. The main objects are the artistic "sets," the colossal architecture, and the endless sky covering the structure, sometimes drenched in the northern lights, sometimes in enormous rainbows, sometimes cleaved by gigantic lightning bolts from tropical storms of distant eras after global warming.

The remaining static works are a combination of organic and inorganic materials. In addition to palm printing the aforementioned entrance area, the artist has mastered an innovative technique: printing nano-ink with a UV hardener on various materials. Some of the images are applied to lacquered panels made "according to the recipe" of layered Mongolian onions, that is, from sinew and wood. Another part is on felt panels reinforced with wood (like a yurt), hand-gilded. And a third is on panels made, like Chinese jewelry boxes, from eggshells and organic glue. Fine veins and cracks run through these works like craquelure, adding depth and heightening the historicist perception of the pieces.

And only the artist’s personal stubbornness, year after year compelling him to wave the proverbial red-and-gold flag in search of peace and beauty, betrays his political sentiments—though more utopian Bolshevik than any others so eagerly attributed to him.