Sergey Voronzov

voronzov_08_0Born in 1960 in Moscow. Participated in the activities of the “Club of Avant-garde-artists” (1986-1988), founded the rock-group “Central Russian Elevation”, in Germany he founded the rock-group “Unterwasser” (1993). Lives and works in Berlin and Moscow. Solo exhibitions: “Cosmos – the best clothes for a holiday” (Gallery “ARTstrelka projects”, Moscow, 2008), “Traces. Objects” (Gallery “ARTstrelka projects”, Moscow, 2007), also in Germany and France. Participated in exhibitions: “Sots-art”; within the framework of the 2nd Moscow Biennale. Works held in the State Tretyakov Gallery, the Zverevsky Centre of Contemporary Art (Moscow), the Ludwig Museum in Köln (Germany), Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Germany), Staatsarchiv (Berlin, Germany), Berlinishe Galerie (Germany) and others.

Cosmos — the best clothes for a holiday

The work Cosmos — the best clothes for a holiday, in accordance with its title, is dedicated to the cosmos. Or rather to the Soviet space programme, in the reality of which Pelevin once had doubts. Many are nostalgic about those times when Soviet dogs regularly ploughed through airless space. Vorontsov, it may seem, panders to this nostalgia, but in fact it is not so.
The main objects — are products of the degenerative Soviet design of the 60-70s: rickety stools, a coffee table and frightening divan-beds on which hundreds of thousands of the contemporaries of Belka and Strelka, Korolev and Gagarin conceived their progeny. The surface of the furniture is painted with pictures on cosmic themes, executed using the smalt mosaic technique.
But the absurdity is not only in this: it is clearly articulated in the title of the exhibition and in the fact that the cement is inlaid with precious smalt. What is more important is, if you sit on this furniture, you are committing a cultural crime. How can one sit on Gagarin?
But here the absurdity vanishes: it’s not to do with nostalgia, not to do with the mockery of myths and not to do with pointless market hackwork. Vorontsov’s works are a very good example of how a meaningless object is reborn into a major work of art, existing apart from what is usually said about it.

Nikita Alekseev


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