    | | | Created for the support of Petersburg artists (both participation in the exhibitions and entrance are free), in the course of time the Gallery became a rather prestigious spot for organization of exhibitions both of domestic and foreign artists. We believe that in the situation when there are few exhibition spaces in the city and a great scale of creative ideas, aesthetic concepts and artistic practices, the main actual task is to present as many artists as possible independent on genre and technology. Exhibitions in the Borey Gallery are in the non-stop regime. It is a basic principle of the Gallery to support beginning artists and creators (the first exhibition, the first book, the first article). Absence of aesthetic snobbery and restraints in the interests of a special group of artists. Accessibility and openness.
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7 - 18 April 2009. Alexander Sementzov. Painting. |
Alexander Sementzov
Painting
In the halls of the gallery |  | |  | |  | | | | | | | Alexander Sementzov (1941 - 2005) was born on May 17 1941 in Kerch.
1960 - 1966 – student at dpt of physics and mathematics of Tbilisi State University
1963 – 1965 - student at Art Academy in Tbilisi.
1965 -1967 - student at dpt of arts of Tbilisi State University.
Since 1976 - member of the Union of artists of Georgian SSR.
Since 1986 - member of the Union of artists of USSR
Many works by Sementzov are abroad, in particular in the town of Beskov (Brandenburg, Germany) where the artist has been living for the last decade. His triptych is in Marienkirche, the main cathedral of the town.
The biography of Alexander Sementzov could be a base for a fascinating plot: he was born in the Crimea, was evacuated to Georgia and stayed there. Though he had loved painting since his childhood, he decided to become a physicist, as many did in 1960-ies. Upon graduation from Tbilisi State University (1960-1966) he worked in experimental physics for 19 years, with painting as a hobby. In 1976 he becomes a member of the Union of artists of Georgia, and in 1986 – a member of the Union of artists of USSR; since 1993 he has been a member of the Union of artists of St. Petersburg.
Alexander Sementzov is an artist with good art training (at Tbilisi Art Academy he was Vasily Shukhaev’s student). The roots for his style is the art of the late 19th - early 20th century, in his manner one can feel the influence of German expressionism, French post-impressionism, especially of Cézannes and Utrillo. The refined artistic mastership of Sementzov is combined with clear cut author’s position as of a Man of the World. The artist as a true philosopher realizing the imperfection of the reality, does not turn off his eye from the unfair and terrible. On his canvases there are not only beautiful cities, like Petersburg, Paris, Berlin, or flowers – but also lonely and confused people, the Sennaya square of 1990-ies with its stalls and ragged residents, senseless ruins of fratricidal conflicts of the last post-soviet decade…
"The works by Alexander Sementzov have many sides. Lovers of fine art know his wonderful lyric landscapes and still lives, which keep attracting your sight again and again. But this exhibition shows us another Sementzov, a severe and strict artist. Like Virgil he takes us through the three circles of the Russian hell. He shows us the essence of the world we would never like to see and would like to forget and never know. It is civic Sementzov, who has built, with his brave palette, a unique philosophy of post-Soviet Russia – its historical philosophy in colours.
Sementzov’s urban theme at first sight resembles his lyric urban landscapes. But if you watch attentively, you get captured by involuntary anxiety. These thrilling impressionist strokes create inner tension. What courage one should have to live in a modern city with dignity, to remember of the eternal, to remain in the state of high serenity amongst hourly rebellion (“Bridge: Help me, oh Lord!”)
The city calls for sacrifice. Any person is a fragile flower, but the city crumples and cripples flowers. The artist likes the city dwellers, admires then, but he suffers and takes pains over their petty corruptibility and feverish cheerfulness, gets ill with their lies. Nice faces – and suddenly savage mugs peeping out…
Russian countryside… What is hidden by city lights, sets forth with awesome clearness. We find ourselves in the second circle of the Russian hell. The dying, the ruined and the unable to make any ends meet. Here it is, rural Russia being raped, with her bosom naked and her mouth tied. And a thug towering over it. And a child watching it all with his eyes tied.
The third circle of the Russian hell is the war, which implacably (and already commonplace!) goes today. But we, city dwellers, see the war only on TV screens and confuse it with action movies. Sementzov has looked into the eyes of this war and endured its glare – the glare of Gorgon.
The artist has fulfilled his civil duty if he has managed to show us what we, in our laziness, cowardice and falsity, have no guts to look at.
He has made us braver, stronger and more truthful.
Konstantin Pigrov |
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March 24 – April 4, 2009. Dmitry Provotorov. Photography. |
«SHORE»
Photography
In the Small hall |  | |  | |  | | | | | | | Dmitry Provotorov was born in Leningrad in 1975. He started to take photos in 1999, in 1999-2000 was a student of Leningrad Motion Picture Engineers Institute (LIKI), photography department. Since 2000 he has been working with b/w; uses toning, experimental hand-printing.
Participated in a great number of personal and group exhibitions.
Dmitry’s works are now part of Moscow House of Photography, State St.Petersburg Centre of Photography and private collections.
Dmitry Provotorov’s works bring together play and seriousness, real life and fantasy, present with past and future, reality and ephemera. The artist analyses seeming, delusive, and relative freedom of a human at the turn of Millenium, and his works pretty well demonstrate Aristotle’s paradox: “If you want to be serious, play”.
And the author plays with form and content, colour and half-tints, technique and methodology of his artistic statement, with images, models, surface of the negative and print. He transforms continuum of space-time and creates certain shifts, crossings of suggestive meanings and various realities both behind and in front of the camera. Choosing photography as a means to express his artistic point of view, Dmitry acts like a sculptor, extracting an artificial image from the photo, giving birth to unique forms, thrilling in their anachronism. Rejecting computer technologies that deprive of individuality, Provotorov processes photos by hand and never passes this authority to a machine. The artist’s hand is physically present in each of his creations; the negative is processed without any mediators in direct contact of the author and his work. The photographer uses various additional effects such as toning or engraving-like scratching and makes the printing. Provotorov reveals the surface texture of his photos at every stage and finally combines intricate compositions of strokes, silhouettes, tints, and lines. The feeling of break-up and creation, refraction and even deconstruction of the image, together with peculiar broken perfectionism of the author’s style, lead to the whole complex of almost tactile visual experiences. |
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March 24 – April 4, 2009. Yuri Medvedev. Painting. |
«HELLO, DOCTOR TULP!»
Painting
In the halls of the gallery |  |  | | | | | | | Yuri Alexandrovich Medvedev
Was born in Ufa on January 6, 1939
1956 - 62 studies architecture at Novosibirsk State Architectural Construction University (“SIBSTRIN”)
(since 1960 studies painting in Nikolay Gritsouk’s workshop)
1962 - 67 works as an architect in Frunze, Kirgizia,
travels in Central Asia, goes in for mountain tourism, makes sketches
Since 1965 is a member of USSR Architects Union
Since 1967 has lived in Leningrad (St Petersburg)
Works for Lenproject (studio of I.I.Fomin, academician)
1970 - first solo show at Lenproject.
Meets A.Arefiev, O.Grigoriev, M.Shemyakin,
G.Egoshin and other artists
1975 – participant of a show at the Nevsky Palace of Culture
1976 - 80 participant of apartment shows
1980 - 85 participant of shows at the Molodyozhny Palace of Culture,
member of the Society for Experimental Visual Art (TEII), “Free Culture” (Pushkinskaya, 10)
Since 1985 has participated in international shows in France, Germany, USA "… Beside the secret of enchanting coloring, St Petersburg artist Yuri Medvedev has another undeniable talent, which is his ability to create masterly compositions. For that he needs material, lots of objects and personages, that’s why his works are full of “characters” and “props”.
It strikes the eye, that expressiveness of the “nature morte” of his flower-pieces (by the way, Medvedev, like many people now, doesn’t like the French name of this genre and prefers the Dutch word "stilleben") equals that of animated nature, i.e. of a modern human. Both here and there we have a wide range of the author’s feelings and reflections…"
Nikolay Blagodatov Yuri Alexandrovich Medvedev is a painter, whose artistic credo, preferences in painting, and, moreover, way of life in the art were formed in the 60-s, alongside and together with other artists and poets of the Arefiev circle: A.Arefiev, V.Nekrasov, O.Grigoriev and others. An architect by education (specializing in industrial architecture), starting from 1960-s he also practises painting, by means of which he expresses his vision of the world. At first sight it may seem that his paintings and graphics are an exact opposite to the architecture which he projects in the constructivist style of the 60-s: precisely and rigidly drawn rectangular volumes, formulated in the language of neobrutalism, that was fashionable at that time. Indeed, there are almost no architectural forms as such in the pictures, man and nature dominate, but they are drawn distinctly and concisely and exist in a dense environment of tectonic coordinates with intense composition. Big volumes, prominent textured forms, painted in rather bright colors let the artist speak generally and actively use the language of metaphors, plastic symbols. Thus, he makes even the most lyrical, prosy themes sound not sentimental, but forced and vigorous, almost monumental, which partially conforms to romantic, existentially-dramatic pathos of the 60-s.
Y.Medvedev considers N.Gritsouk to be his teacher, a famous Novosibirsk master, whose painting was on the European level and helped Medvedev to learn lessons of the most prominent artists of the 20th century. Thanks to Gritsouk, he managed to revise, make closer, turn into an integral whole blending in his own individuality the richest artistic experience (of Picasso, Chagall, Dufy, Beckmann, Moore and others), that was practically unavailable in Russia. Besides, when he lived in Novosibirsk, there were several shows of P.Filonov, El Lissitzky, and M.Shemyakin in Novosibirsk Academgorodok. All that predetermined his further career as an artist: starting from 1970-s he became an active participant of Leningrad non-official painters’ exhibitions (including the legendary show at the Nevsky Palace of Culture in 1975).
Apart from carnival, sometimes even grotesque circus images, there are constantly present trivial, “kitchen-sink” themes in his works in their own a little bit forced way (but not nervous, expressive like in Arefiev’s works, rather fairytale-like and mocking), also reflecting everyday street and communal life of a Soviet person. Main series of the artist’s works are being developed until now, namely "Prose of Everyday Life" ("Realities of Being"), "Central Asia", "Street Crossing", "At Table", "Don Quixote".
This exhibition includes pictures, showing his creative work in the 21st century. An artist with a bunch of brushes in the hand performs some mysterious actions, kind of a ritual. “I put art above religion”, the painter says, and these words perfectly explain not only a joyful, full of inner tension and stern expression painting, but his artistic credo as a whole.
Gleb Ershov |
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