permanent presence

Andrey blazhnov

July 12 — July 18, 2012
Triumph gallery

In 2010, Andrey Blazhnov received the Kandinsky Prize, but this is the first time that the artist’s solo exhibition has been held. "Permanent Presence" includes video and photo works made recently, and introduces the author’s visual language to the fullest extent possible.

All of Andrey Blazhnov’s works, on the one hand, are carefully recorded reality, on the other, they focus on visual perception as a way of knowing the world. His method is simple to the point of austerity, technical means are kept to a minimum — only the camera of the phone. The rushing threads of railways, the rustle of leaves and the flashes of LEDs — all this ends up in the memory of a mobile device.

Leaf fall
2010
Video
9’

All of Andrey Blazhnov’s works, on the one hand, are carefully recorded reality, on the other, they focus on visual perception as a way of knowing the world. His method is simple to the point of austerity, technical means are kept to a minimum — only the camera of the phone. The rushing threads of railways, the rustle of leaves and the flashes of LEDs — all this ends up in the memory of a mobile device.

The only technique that Blazhnov uses is combining frames into a two-channel video. The artist confronts opposites and at the same time brings them into a state of balance, creates a binary and reveals antagonism. The juxtaposition is most clearly observed in the new work "Heat" - against the background of icy trees taken from the window, the red-hot heater lamps rotate like a pagan totem pole. The combination of artificial fire and endless snow-covered expanses becomes a starting point for thinking about cultural identity.

The author’s simple toolkit is close to Zen philosophy — precise alignment and elimination of all unnecessary things. "I cut out the unnecessary, the secondary, and bring the work to a sign, a symbol, and a generalization," says the artist. Attempts to express the inexpressible, to overcome the visible, and to reveal the visible are insights given in simple things and obtained by simple means.