In two seperate exhibitions at Giedre Bartelt Galerie in BERLIN, Igor Savchenko presents "Commented Landscapes" and Artur Klinau shows "The Sun City of Dreams". Both Igor Savchenko and Artur Klinau are living and working in Minsk. They belong to the international most acknowledged artists from White Russia. An enormous range of artistic activities is characteristic for both of them.
Igor Savchenko (*1962 ) works as writer, theoretician and artist. From the early nineties up to 1997 he focused on conventional photography. This period he considers as completet. During this short time Savchenko brought up some extensive photographical projects, which are composed of large cycles.
His photographs has been shown in many international exhibitions (f. e. at: Fotofest, Houston 1992, ifa-Galerie, Berlin 1994, Museet for Fotokunst, Odense 1997, KIASMA, Helsinki 1998, The Hasselblad Center, Gothenburg 1998, The State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg 1999, `After the Wall`, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin 1999, Foto Biennale, Rotterdam 2000, Month of Photography, Moscow 2002). Important collections: (f. e. at: Det Kongelige Bibliothek, Kopenhagen, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Fotomuseum, München, Fotomuseum, Winterthur, KIASMA, Helsinki, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, The Hasselblad Collection, Gothenburg, Zimmerli Art Museum, New Jersey, The State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg).
Igor Savchenko is among the few photographic artists from Eastern Europe who are mentioned in the "Encyclopaedia of Photographers" (Hans-Michael Koetzle, Knaur):
"Main theme of Savchenkos' is a contemporaneously analysis of the profound incidents in Russia and Germany during the 20th century. In particular the disaster of World War Two gave him the opportunities to investigate phenomenons like patriotism, war, destruction, rebuilding etc... Besides that Savchenko deals more and more with phenomenological problems like the question of perception or the crisis of the visual. In this context textual elements are gaining evidence. Meanwhile he is using digital technology for translating complex structures in to multidimensional pictures." - Tatiana Salzirn
Artur Klinau/ Klinov (*1965) became international known by his so called "Total Installations". To mention as an example is the installation of a whole living room with furniture made out of straw, shown at the 8. Baltic Trienale in Vilnius in 2002. Another important priority of his work is publishing of "pARTisan" the only white russian magazine for contemporary art.
The youngest project of Klinaus` also shows his publishing ambitions. It is a photographical documentary with annotations concerning the architecture of his hometown Minsk. This documentary was published under the title "The Sun City of Dreams" in 2006.
Klinau, a trained architect whith a professional instinct for urban space took all photographs of construction volumes and ornaments by himself and added a text in white russian and english.
Founded in the 11th century, nowadays inhabited by 1,74 Mio. citizens, the capital of White Russia never played a serious part in politics. Destroyed up to 95% percent during World War Two, Minsk has been rebuild as the ideal city, representing the great communist Utopia. Like no other city in the former Soviet Union, not even Moscow, Minsk embodies the striving for representation and purity of the imperialistic, stalinistic architecture. Huge complexes of massive, neoclassicistic buildings have been built on a chequered ground-plan. They are subordinated to wide boulevards and lined with parks. The formal language of the architectural ornaments is borrowed from the Emoire style, in terms of content they are addressed to the population of a "worker`s and peasant`s state". Klinau analyzes this peculiar stilistics in his introductory text.
Within the bounds of a joint project "Last & Lost" by the "Literaturhaus München", the "Literary Colloquium Berlin", the publishing house "Suhrkamp" and the "Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz" Artur Klinau will speak on March the 24th at the "Literary Colloquium Berlin".
Igor Savchenko stays as a guest of the house at the "Literary Colloquium Berlin".
IMAGE
Igor Savchenko
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