The city air has taken me out of the closed and «jealous» museum rooms to the street. I kept working with the museums, but in the open and thus started to create objects for the urban space. Art stopped being a private action and allowed the public to enjoy art without being taken away from daily life.
At the beginning, I started working with more ephemeral installations, hand made objects with sellotape wrapped over industrial plastic with the help of a group of students. Little by little the tape was replaced by more durable materials like wood, aluminium or glass, and the students by construction companies. The facades became buildings, schools, bus stations and hotels.
I was creating giant drawings in 3D or rather engravings that amplify the urban scene with a series of cultural references. We could say that my installations came out of the portfolio full with drawings. In one Austrian gallery we even made an exhibition where the drawings and etchings were flying out of the windows to fill up the city. The other example of such works was the White Quarter that appeared in the courtyard of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts and presented the giant negative of an Italian etching that is kept in the nearby building.
At the beginning, I started working with more ephemeral installations, hand made objects with sellotape wrapped over industrial plastic with the help of a group of students. Little by little the tape was replaced by more durable materials like wood, aluminium or glass, and the students by construction companies. The facades became buildings, schools, bus stations and hotels.
I was creating giant drawings in 3D or rather engravings that amplify the urban scene with a series of cultural references. We could say that my installations came out of the portfolio full with drawings. In one Austrian gallery we even made an exhibition where the drawings and etchings were flying out of the windows to fill up the city. The other example of such works was the White Quarter that appeared in the courtyard of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts and presented the giant negative of an Italian etching that is kept in the nearby building.
Alexander Konstantinov
