NOTHING ELSE (2022)
Vladimir Potapov/ FUTURO Gallery/ NOTHING ELSE exibition/ «Sign»/ 2022
LOCATION: FUTURO Gallery, Nizhny Novgorod.
Vladimir Potapov/ NOTHING ELSE/ 2022/ Exibition entry
Vladimir Potapov/ FUTURO Gallery/ NOTHING ELSE exibition/ 2022
More than 30 paintings are integrated into the gallery’s expositions with a large-scale labyrinth installation of Soviet furniture and interior items collected from advertisements from residents of Nizhny Novgorod city.
Vladimir Potapov/ FUTURO Gallery/ NOTHING ELSE exibition/ 2022
Vladimir Potapov/ FUTURO Gallery/ NOTHING ELSE exibition/ 2022
Vladimir Potapov/ FUTURO Gallery/ NOTHING ELSE exibition/ 2022
The exhibition «Nothing Else» is a conversation about the concept of eternal return, to which modern Russia has been striving for the last 20 years, back to bloc confrontation, on the one hand, and on the other, the identification of the problems of Russia’s cultural and historical identity.
Vladimir Potapov/ FUTURO Gallery/ NOTHING ELSE exibition/ 2022
The author creates paintings by scraping off the same kind of paint that public utilities paint once a year the city’s infrastructure. The artist seems to dig up the past in layers of paint and pull it out.
Vladimir Potapov/ FUTURO Gallery/ NOTHING ELSE exibition/ 2022
Vladimir Potapov/ FUTURO Gallery/ NOTHING ELSE exibition/ «Sign»/ 2022
«I use this method of creating an image along with images of the past, which today are actively crowding out the present and depriving us of the future. This is how I capture our here and now» — says the artist.
Vladimir Potapov/ FUTURO Gallery/ NOTHING ELSE exibition/ «Sign»/ 2022
The entire exposition is housed in a 19th century building and consists of two rooms. The first is an almost 200-meter space with walls with baroque stucco. The second room is made under a white cube, a clean and sterile space.
Vladimir Potapov/ FUTURO Gallery/ NOTHING ELSE exibition/ 2022
FIRST ROOM
Vladimir Potapov/ FUTURO Gallery/ NOTHING ELSE exibition/ 2022
Vladimir Potapov/ FUTURO Gallery/ NOTHING ELSE exibition/ 2022
In the first space, a labyrinth was created from old Soviet furniture, collected from ads in which Nizhny Novgorod gave away furniture for free. These are classic Soviet, Czech and GDR cabinets and wardrobes, which in Soviet times was considered the height of chic. Paintings are hung on the backs of cabinets and wardrobes. Seven Soviet chandeliers and lampshades are hung from the ceiling. The main task was to make the viewer wander between the cabinets as if through a labyrinth in the atmosphere of a chamber Soviet apartment, flooded with warm kitchen light.
Vladimir Potapov/ FUTURO Gallery/ NOTHING ELSE exibition/ 2022
Vladimir Potapov/ FUTURO Gallery/ NOTHING ELSE exibition/ 2022
«For me, this is important because Russia is once again turning into a Soviet project and what was actively forgotten has now become the agenda. Nothing remains of the former country. Russia is falling into the abyss of the past» — says the artist.
Vladimir Potapov/ FUTURO Gallery/ NOTHING ELSE exibition/ 2022
Vladimir Potapov/ FUTURO Gallery/ NOTHING ELSE exibition/ 2022
Vladimir Potapov/ FUTURO Gallery/ NOTHING ELSE exibition/ 2022
On top of the Soviet furniture is a phrase referring to the words of the poet Boris Pasternak, which he uttered after he heard Osip Mandelstam’s poem about the mustachioed mountaineer (about Stalin) «I was not shown anything here, I did not see anything.»
A camera under the ceiling recorded how the audience walked around the inscription. The viewer does not see this inscription, but becomes an accomplice in the action. The video is sped up 10 times so that the bodies of the viewers are not distinguishable, so that their movement turns into a disembodied stream. This work is about the fear that binds everyone today, primarily about the fear of the state machine, which grinds its own citizens.
Vladimir Potapov/ FUTURO Gallery/ NOTHING ELSE exibition/ 2022
Vladimir Potapov/ FUTURO Gallery/ NOTHING ELSE exibition/ 2022
Vladimir Potapov, Vanya Potapov, Bogdan Potapov/ FUTURO Gallery/ NOTHING ELSE exibition/ «Forest»/ 2022
Also in this first space there is a niche in the wall 30×30×60 cm, in which the author with his 11-year-old sons Vanya and Bogdan placed the work «Forest». The work was done in the layout format, which depicts a heart in the shape of a trench.
Vladimir Potapov, Vanya Potapov, Bogdan Potapov/ FUTURO Gallery/ NOTHING ELSE exibition/ «Forest»/ 2022
SECOND SPACE
In the second room there is a specially made 6-meter work «Sign». This work is now shown only to authorized persons. The owners of the space have friends in the local prosecutor’s office, they told them that this work is provocative and therefore everyone can have problems. The picture shows a panorama of Moscow with the main symbols of power, doves crash into the surface of the picture and fall to the floor.
Vladimir Potapov/ FUTURO Gallery/ NOTHING ELSE exibition/ «Sign»/ 2022
Vladimir Potapov/ FUTURO Gallery/ NOTHING ELSE exibition/ «Sign»/ 2022
Vladimir Potapov/ FUTURO Gallery/ NOTHING ELSE exibition/ «Sign»/ 2022
«For me, the dove means, first of all, a symbol of peace, and secondly, it is a Christian symbol» — explains Potapov.
Vladimir Potapov/ FUTURO Gallery/ NOTHING ELSE exibition/ «Sign»/ 2022
Vladimir Potapov/ FUTURO Gallery/ NOTHING ELSE exibition/ «Sign»/ 2022
Vladimir Potapov/ FUTURO Gallery/ NOTHING ELSE exibition/ «Sign»/ 2022
