29 january 2004—1 march 2004
The exhibition shows some 130 works of the well-known St. Petersburg artist Felix Volossenkov. These are works of painting, graphics, and objects, which have been created since 1970s and represent a whole epoch of St. Petersburg culture. The artist has also created myths about himself, he supposes that new century, the era of Aquarius, will bring a new deity, common for the man and all animal world. This deity's main commandment will be that of humane attitude towards nature. And this deity will be God Voloss. In 1970s-80s, when the Soviet art represented the confrontation of official and unofficial art, a pleiad of artist inspired with freethinking of the 1960s appeared in Leningrad. Later, the most famous of them organized St. Petersburg Academy of Modern Art - "The Academy of The Forty Immortal", whose founder and president is Felix Volossenkov. As an adolescent, Felix Volossenkov dreamed to become a monumentalist artist. However, afraid to lose his freedom, having graduated from Art School in Baku and having spent some time in Ural Polytechnic Institute, where he studied architecture, he enters Leningrad State Institute of Music, Theatre, and Cinema, instead of the Academy of Arts or Mukhina Art School. Theatre exposed him to the world of transformation. There were width and certain liberty. He also managed to create something like that in easel painting. This was due to his imagination and his uncommon understanding of the world. As an art director, Felix Volossenkov appreciates the important role of the acting area; his works are rich in metaphors, which prevent instant comprehension, attract viewers' attention, and make them more involved in the meaning of that depicted. Felix Volossenkov does not follow the tradition of communicating with a viewer through a realistic images; he prefers expression, devotes his attention to the energy of an object rather than to the object itself. The artist does not have any strict range of subjects, no "high" or "low" themes, as well as he does not admit existence of difference between abstract and figurative art, traditional and experimental techniques. He sees everything that is created as various levels of approach to the idea. And the idea may be realized in any one way.
The New Old God
Felix Volossyenkov
