2012 - Permanent Presence - ANDREY BLAZHNOV

"Permanent Presence"
personal exhibition
12.07.2012 – 18.07.2012
Triumph Gallery

Following his triumphant receipt of the Kandinsky Prize, Andrei Blazhnov, from Khabarovsk, is presenting new material at his first personal exhibition in Moscow. The exhibition “Permanent Presence” comprises a series of video and photographic works made by the artist recently, and gives a comprehensive introduction to the author’s visual language.

All of Blazhnov’s works are, on the one hand, a careful registering of reality, and on the other a concentration on visual perception as a way of knowing the world. His method is as simple as the asceticism of a monk – the technological resources are reduced to a minimum, with a mobile phone camera alone used.

The only method that Blazhnov uses is the joining of shots within a two-channel video. The artist confronts opposites and at the same time establishes a balance between them, creating a binarity, identifying antagonism. The most precise confrontations can be seen in the work “Warmth” – against a background trees covered in ice, photographed from a window, a pagan totem pole spins fiery hot heating lamps. The combination of artificial fire and endless snowy wastes becomes the starting point for the reflections on cultural identity.

The simple tools of the author are close to Zen philosophy – pinpoint precision and the removal of any excess. “I remove what isn’t needed, the secondary, I reduce the work to a sign, a symbol, to a generalization,” says the artist. Attempts to express the inexpressible, to master the visible and expose semblance – this is comprehension expressed in simple things, achieved with simple means. This sensation is enhanced by a meditative quality achieved through monotonous and unhurried repetition. Here, undoubtedly, the author’s far eastern roots are evident.

Vladimir Potapov, 2011

Exhibition plan