Roman Sakin

Born in 1976 in Kursk. Graduated from the Vasnetsov College of Arts and Industry (Khotkovo, Moscow region) and the Moscow Stroganov State Academy of Arts and Industry. Lives and works in Moscow.

Systems of Measurement.

The exhibition space turns into a living room with a dining table, bed, sofa, and even a rug on the wall. All these household items, as well as dishes, elements of decor, the floor and the walls are equipped with strange devices, as if assembled from a child’s building block set. Actually, these are vintage tools for measuring various quantities.

The author comments that his experiments “study the structure of the world — not the way that science does but the way only art can do. It does not require objective data, only data from the point of view of a particular observer. The right thing to do would be to put an observer at the centre of the universe. This observer’s first task would be to measure the world.” Measuring the world serves not only to expand the knowledge of the universe but also to banish ghosts, which “do not tolerate being measured: the fact of measurement must transform them from a paranormal, as it were, wave state into material objects made of particles.”

This is why one of the gallery spaces is occupied by a giant measuring structure and nothing else. Like other works by Sakin, this project combines flawless quality of installation with irony concealed behind the nearly childish seriousness with which he develops, tests, and presents his theory. The results of these “scientific” experiments are aimed at the harmonisation of relations between the human being and the world.

Irina Gorlova