Andrei Bartenev: Isn't it too “fashionable” for a verdict? “My costumes are space suits”: Artist Andrey Bartenev about beauty and self-expression Bartenev designer.

Russian artist, sculptor, designer, actionist, experimenter and creator of many provocative exhibitions and performances.

Andrey Bartenev. Biography and creative path

Andrey Bartenev was born in Norilsk in October 1965 in ordinary family living in a communal apartment. As a child, he dreamed of getting a musical education, but living conditions did not allow him to place a large piano at home. AT early years all his work, according to Bartenev, was limited to plasticine and scissors: the boy sculpted various figures and created collages from colored paper.

After graduating from school, Bartenev moved to Krasnodar, where he entered the Institute of Arts at the Faculty of Theater Directing. He worked in his specialty for about six months, after which he arrived in Moscow in the late 1980s, where he soon met the outrageous Zhanna Aguzarova. According to Andrei, the then director of the singer Sergei Gagarin helped him start his career in the capital.

Andrey Bartenev: Then there were world-famous acquaintances - Andrew Logan, Paco Rabanne, Calvin Klein, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Robert Wilson, Zandra Rose ... They became not only my good acquaintances and friends, but also an example of how you can model your life " . I love to dress and live according to my imagination... I dress the way I want to. Moreover, if in any European country my appearance arouses benevolent curiosity, then in Russia it is bright and unusual appearance provokes aggression.

At the beginning creative way Andrei was guided by the Russian classics and avant-garde of 1911-1914. In the mid-90s, Bartenev dedicated one of his performances to the avant-garde artist Kazimir Malevich.

In 1992, at the festival in Riga, Andrey Bartenev was awarded the Grand Prix for his project Botanical Ballet.

Having gained popularity, Andrey became more and more a participant in various music festivals, arranging multimedia performances. In addition, the area of ​​​​occupation of the designer and fashion designer Bartenev: graphics, sculpture design, writing activity. He conducts master classes both in Russia and abroad - in America, Britain, etc. European countries. At one time he taught at the theater academy in Norway at the faculty of scenography.

Of particular interest to the audience are the unusual dynamic performances of Andrei, whose works are in Russian and foreign galleries, private collections, exhibited in major museums of contemporary art abroad. Among his brainchildren: the exhibition “Love haute couture!”, the illustration festival “Institute of Smile”, the projects “Sleeping Beauties”, “ Mineral water”,“ Underwear for Africa ”,“ Botanical Ballet ”,“ The Snow Queen”, which, like other works, shocked foreign art historians.

Among the world-famous performances of Bartenev is the project “I love you!”, which is a dimensional structure of many huge speakers. They are located one after another along a curve. The spectator, pronouncing the cherished words, observes how the phrase, which lives a short life, returns back.

In 2015, Andrey presented a retrospective of his works created by the author over a quarter of a century at the Museum of Modern Art in Moscow.

Andrey Bartenev: I love public spaces: stadiums, shops, airports. I don't mind filling them with my shapes. How more people see them, the more they will be charged with my understanding of friendship and love.

In 2016, for example, Andrei's exhibition entitled "Give love!" opened in the shopping and entertainment center of the capital Kuntsevo Plaza. In the same year he worked as artistic director galleries "Here on Taganka", where he made successful exhibitions "Feet in the water, head in the clouds" and "Portraits happy people", which visited record number of people.

Andrei Bartenev is a member of the Union of Artists and the Academy of Fools of Vyacheslav Polunin.

At the end of February 2017, it became known that Bartenev would temporarily take the “throne” from March 1, on which, as part of the Fashion Sentence program on Channel One, fashion historian Alexander Vasilyev had been sitting since the summer of 2009, who replaced the former popular TV presenter in this place show Vyacheslav Zaitsev, who left the project for health reasons.

In "Fashionable Sentence" in early March, there was an unexpected change.

Fashion historian Alexander Vasiliev, who has been sitting in the judge's chair since 2009, has given way to another man. And what!

Andrei Bartenev is considered one of the most outrageous contemporary Russian artists. Although it is impossible to call him only an artist - he is also a director, a sculptor, a fashion designer, and even a writer. What he does always causes controversy. However, if someone says that they do not understand the message of his works, Bartenev just shrugs his shoulders.

Contemporary art is a translation of the meanings of prehistoric standards of beauty into modern language he says. - And since young languages ​​are very difficult to learn, many do not understand.

WHO IS HE?

Andrey was born in distant Norilsk. After leaving school, he studied as a theater director at the Art Institute of Krasnodar, and then went to conquer Moscow. And soon the secular party started talking about a strange man who goes to presentations in costumes made from empty plastic bottles with flashing lights.

It can be said that Bartenev ended up in right place at the right time. It was in those wild 90s, when against the backdrop of absolute poverty, loud presentations and noisy parties flourished everywhere, this strange man suddenly came to court.

And when he released the performance "The Snow Queen" - with moving sculptures with geometric ornaments in bright colors - the critics even compared Bartenev with Malevich and Kandinsky! It was a real success, after which Andrei was noted abroad.

Among his acquaintances were not only Russian, but also foreign stars - Andrew Logan, Paco Rabanne, Calvin Klein, Jean-Paul Gaultier ...

They became not only my good acquaintances and friends, but also an example of how you can model your life, - says Bartenev.

Despite the image of a crazy freak, Andrei is a rather sensible person, who clearly knows what he wants and how to achieve it. Bartenev is a brilliant manager of himself, so his fees are very high, and his works are sold at decent prices.

"NEVER REFUSE SEX"

If many people know about Bartenev's performances - they turn out to be too loud, then Andrei tries to keep everything that lies outside the sphere of art a secret. For example, even reputable reference books are confused about how old he is. In different sources - different numbers: 46, 48, 54 ...

Also, no one knows anything about the personal life of the outrageous artist. It is not even known if he is married. True, judging by the fact that once Andrei became the hero of the Let's Get Married program (where he came in a corn suit that completely hides his body and face), his heart is still free. Bartenev himself, in a recent interview, when asked what advice he would give to himself, a 19-year-old, from the height of his years, answers: “Never refuse sex to those who want to have sex with you.”

IS THE CLOWNING OVER?

To be fair, it must be said that in recent times Bartenev's style even in clothes has changed somewhat. He stopped so frankly shocking the audience. He himself explains this by the fact that he used to be a clown, but the children whom he amused have grown up, and now we need to look for other ways to be interesting for them. Or maybe Andrey was just tired of the misunderstanding of others: he was repeatedly attacked - just because of his bright appearance.

But Bartenev is loved abroad, his works are in many of the best galleries. And he himself spends most of his time outside of Russia - works in America and Europe, gives master classes in theater academies. It was in Europe, or rather in Spain, that he was caught by a call from Channel One with a proposal to become, albeit temporarily, the host of Fashion Sentence.

"PROS AND CONS"

According to Bartenev, at first he thought that it was either someone's joke, or they just got in the wrong place. But when it became clear that the call was not a hoax, I immediately bought a ticket for the next flight to Moscow.

The surprises didn't end there. Bartenev, remembering that this is Channel One, and not Fashion TV, brought a whole suitcase of classic costumes to the shooting of the program (it turns out that there are such in his arsenal). However, they only waved their hands: no, don't be dignified, let's take your crazy outfits of giraffes and peacocks to the studio.

Andrey Bartenev fit into the well-coordinated team represented by Evelina Khromchenko and Nadezhda Babkina quite organically. But the audience of "Fashionable Sentence" was divided into two camps.

Some from the very first broadcast fell in love with Bartenev - in his unique style, the ability to detect something unusual even in the "gray mouse" and, of course, in his sparkling humor, sometimes on the verge of a foul.

Others, however, began to demand the return of Vasiliev, albeit also very outrageous, but almost homely and dear.

However, in general, we can say that the experiment with the introduction of Bartenev into the program was a success. So it is possible that in the future he will more than once replace the fashion historian who is somewhat tired of constant filming.

Photo by B. Kremer.

Bartenev Andrew was born in Norilsk and loves everything connected with the joy of life. After graduating from the institute in Norilsk, he left for Sochi on distribution. At the same time, he arranged performances at the Salon of Free Artists, where the opening of art exhibitions was accompanied by theatrical performances based on simple subjects.

In 1989 Andrew met Zhanna Aguzarova and her director Sergei Gagarin, who convinced the talented young man to move to Moscow and pursue a career in earnest.

In 1990 Bartenev is already active in the capital. Acquaintance with Petliura, gallery "M" ARS, where they showed performances: "Rampage on Mount Ana-Dyr to the singing of Nikitinsky fish" and "The Great Koryak Gull". Andrew travels to Jurmala for the avant-garde fashion festival and receives the Grand Prix. In the 93rd year - in Frankfurt am Main for an art festival. And after that he constantly travels to Europe with his sculptures and exhibitions.

By my teacher Andrew considers the artist Paul Klee. She prefers beautifully emotional impressionists, Picasso, Gaudi, the era of Austrian modernism and Michelangelo. Appreciates different - bright, kind, strong or dramatic - music. Among his passions are Purcell, Verdi, Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky, Schumann. Feeding a special passion for ballet, he is fond of the choreography of Maurice Bejart and Pina Bush, American modern troupes. Pasolini calls "The Flower of 1001 Nights" the strongest film impression. The cinematography of Sokurov, Parajanov, Greenway, Fellini, Antonioni, Visconti equally attracted his attention. He loves the poetry of Mandelstam, Tsvetaeva, Akhmatova, Pasternak, and along with them reads fantastic works.

Andrew says: “I don’t like passive, but active living of life.
In the course of a constant internal experiment, unexpected things happen - so much is fantasized and emotionalized. One gets the feeling that you are inside a huge water stream flying upwards. It passes through you, and you manage to fix only a small part of it. When it seems to me that my strength and ideas are running out, this is a deceptive impression. When I continue the experience, hoping to repeat it in a new quality, it is always repeated in a different way - in a new quality of emotion. This stream, flying up (rather than falling down as a dead weight), is striking in its perpetuity.

The artist's works have intriguing titles: "Girl with two fireworks", "Self-portrait in the wedding dress of a bird of paradise", "Montpensier at the zoo", "Portrait in boots", "Calmness of two clowns" (left after the Sotheby's auction at "ART-MIFE" 93" to a private collection in Toronto), "I am a fairy, I am a beautiful fairy", "Self-portrait in the role of Arnold Nijinsky". The style of his works, of course, is completely removed from the boundaries of realism.

Andrew Bartenev- an artist with equal success working in the genre of collage, decoupage, line graphics, pastels, installations. He is best known as the author of performances and a black-and-white collection of papier-mâché costumes called "Botanical Ballet", which rocked the Untamed Fashion Assembly in Jurmala. Like the bird of paradise of the Moscow art crowd, it often pleases the eye with delightful outfits that fall into the lens of photojournalists around the world.

Recently Bartenev He also made his debut as an actor in a drama theater. The performance with his participation Shlem.com based on the novel by Viktor Pelevin "The Helmet of Horror" ended the NET festival. The production claims to be a new word in the language of the Russian theater. Three spaces were used: a stage, screens with video art, laptop monitors in the hands of the audience, who commented on what they saw in the chat. Despite these techniques, the authors of the performance almost failed to establish interactive interaction. The theater critics gave the performance a low rating.

However, the participation of the artist Barteneva intriguing in itself. This is another evidence of Andrey's obsession with the idea of ​​overcoming the traditional boundaries of art, a passion for organizing a single multimedia space, especially since the material of the performance - the transcription of the legend of Theseus and the Minotaur in the form of an Internet chat - encourages such experiments.

Andrey was always interested in incongruous. For example, the synthesis of plastic and sound images. His latest sculpture is called "Say: I love you." This is an acoustic performance for the First Moscow Biennale (project "Invasion" by Olga Sviblova). Now this sculpture is exhibited at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art on Petrovka. These are two hundred speakers mounted on a curved spiral. The program includes nine speaker blocks. Worth a microphone. Music is playing. The viewer approaches the microphone. He says "I love you" and his sound starts to fly through these speakers, to transform. The computer has a library that records previous voices. As you approach, your voice echoes five or six times, and for the seventh time, a sound echoes out of the library in response. It turns out that the previous voice confesses its love to you. This is a sound form in its purest form.

In his productions, he always wanted to embody the plasticity of sound.

For example, in New York Andrew did the performance "Red Ladder" for Robert Wilson. Real opera singers came out and sang arias, for example, the second reincarnation of a dog. The directors actively used the sounds of falling empty cans of Coca-Cola and the spanking of pasta cooked on huge dishes. "Screamers" were specially invited, who from the second floor overturned pasta onto the stage.

"It was an amazing cacophony! Expression of sound gives an emotional impetus to choreography. I use it" - shares Bartenev.

What do you know about a contemporary artist named Andrey Bartenev? We do not rule out that our readers still know little about this original creator. Despite the fact that he often appears on TV screens as an eminent guest of some talk show, ordinary people, far from the life of artistic bohemia, for the most part are completely unaware of either his work or his biography. We propose to fill in the gaps in knowledge and get to know the personality of this extraordinary, unlike anyone else person.

Who is he?

If we talk about belonging to a particular profession, then it’s so simple, you can’t define it in one word. Painter? Yes, you could probably say that. Bartenev is also a director, designer, fashion designer, sculptor and even a bit of a writer. All of the above creative interests enter the circle professional activity Andrey Bartenev.

He has a unique capacity for work and talent, dresses in bright outrageous costumes, wears colorful balloons and other unusual items on his head. He says that he sees fantastic dreams at night and has the ability to move to neighboring galaxies. He never changes his creative creed and does what he wants. Moreover, Andrei does not try to explain to others what he wanted to say or show in his installations, saying that his strong point is visualization, but the interpretation of what he saw is already the lot of the audience.

Today Andrey Bartenev's works are exhibited in the best foreign galleries. And he himself is more often abroad than at home in Russia. Here, as already mentioned, he is little known to the general public, but abroad our unrecognized genius is literally carried in his arms.

short biography

Andrei Bartenev was born in the city of Norilsk in 1969. He tells reporters that as a child he dreamed of learning to play the piano, but, alas, the cramped conditions of the Soviet communal apartment did not allow him to place a bulky musical instrument in the apartment.

When the young man was 16 years old, he left his native Norilsk and went to study at the Art Institute of Krasnodar. There he acquired the profession of theater director. Well, then the future master of shocking went to conquer the capital. His artistic career began in Moscow in the late eighties.

Perhaps because Andrey spent all his childhood in the north, surrounded by white snows, he began to use only bright colors in his work. And the materials for the first art works were glass jars and plastic bottles illuminated by LEDs. In the early 90s, he, as they say, "fell into the stream" - the domestic cultural world, stunned by the unexpectedly surging freedom, discovered new opportunities and names for itself.

Andrei Bartenev first became famous in 1992, thanks to a performance he staged called "Botanical Ballet". This work received the Grand Prix at the Riga festival. In 1996 Bartenev became a member of the Moscow Union of Artists.

Performances by Andrey Bartenev

The master's unusual dynamic performances are especially popular with the audience. Seeing his sensational production of "The Snow Queen", foreign art historians wrote that his works combine fashion, art and performance art and revive the spirit of the Russian theatrical avant-garde of the 1920s. The Snow Queen performance featured moving sculptures and objects decorated with geometric shapes green, pink and bright orange. This reminded the foreign audience of Malevich and Kandinsky and caused delight.

Another world-famous performance by Andrey is called "I love you!". It is a kind of construction of many huge speakers, located one after another along a meandering line. The viewer is invited to pronounce the cherished words and then watch how they, having lived a short life, return to him with a reciprocal confession.

Andrey Bartenev: exhibition in Moscow

In 2015, a retrospective of Andrey Bartenev's works was presented to the audience. The exhibition was located in two buildings - so much space was needed to show the creative universe of the master, which he has been creating for 25 years.

As always, Bartenev's art installations were not static. The unifying element at that memorable exhibition was movement - shimmering, rotating and sounding objects turned the exposition space into a single mechanism under the control of the author of this magnificence.

Andrey Bartenev: personal life

Journalists have repeatedly tried to find out from Andrey Bartenev about his personal life, but the artist always gets off with playful phrases and does not let anyone into his personal space. Our hero claims that he was truly in love only once in his life, and that was in kindergarten.

Once Bartenev even took part in the program "Let's Get Married" as a groom. But, as usual, in jest. Andrey himself could not be seen under the suit of huge yellow corn, huddled on top of him. And the release of that program was New Year's and entertaining.

"White crow"

Andrei Bartenev, whose photo you can evaluate in our article, has always felt like a "black sheep" in the community of people. He becomes a sensation always and everywhere, wherever he appears - so extraordinary are all his creative projects and the whole look is unusual.

Andrei has to spend a lot of effort to maintain his appearance, because this is one of the main parts of his image. The combination of the most unimaginable elements in clothing, coupled with incredible colors and cuts, is his signature style. The layman literally plunges into shock at the sight of a man in a strange hat, an orange coat with apples and wonderfully shaped glasses.

The artist himself is a little upset that abroad his appearance causes positive and curiosity among those around him, and in Russia often - aggression (the artist was attacked on the street several times with the aim of beating him).

Final word

How good it is that among us sometimes there are such personalities as Andrei Bartenev - an artist who is not afraid of free expression. Often behind a strange outrageous appearance hiding very talented people who simply cannot be like everyone else.

exhibition curator

“What we see in this exhibition is a fantastic expression of the time, and that is why Bartenev will remain in the history of both Russian and world art. The 1990s is a time of colossal energy, and in these works we feel it very keenly. In those years, everything was mixed up, the whirlwind of time carried us all somewhere: someone lost in the battle with this hurricane, and someone became stronger and laid the foundations of the world in which we live today. The 1990s is a celebration of freedom, which shows how easy it is in personal and public creation everything mixed with everything. Then Moscow was covered with scary stalls where you could buy a Bible, and sneakers, and yellow press, which was not there - a real symbol of the 1990s. Bartenev wonderfully expressed this time in crazy collages, which he wove into the fabric of his sculptures. He showed an incredible, exciting energy, for which there is nostalgia today: then it seemed that everything was possible.

"Three Sisters" (2012)

“The work gave me great pleasure: I have always explored a person as a kind of biomorphic mass, capable of creating a huge number of sculptural variations. I look at dancing actors as a sculptural form that, due to its biomechanics, transforms before my eyes. The combination of characters in space created an endless series of compositions - the project fully satisfied my passion for sculpture and for shifting accents in space.”

"Mogul-mogul, or the Adventures of invisible worms in Russia" (2000)

Photo: Ksenia Kolesnikova

Bartenev:“I also love this performance very much, and it has survived only in the form of documentation. Here I have summed up my ten years of work with moving sculptures, and main value"Gogol-mogul" is associated with the discovery of a falling sculpture. For the performance, we prepared four tons of garbage and six thousand eggs. Seventy actors went on stage, took off everything they were wearing and threw it at the viewer, at this time thousands of eggs fell from the third level, and garbage from the second. Fragments of flying masses formed the feeling of a falling sculpture.

Then I began to investigate who is engaged in falling sculpture in the world practice: first of all, this is the British artist Cornelia Parker and Jean Tinguely, the Swiss artist who made the Stravinsky Fountain at the Georges Pompidou Center with his wife Nika. He was engaged in similar experiments: he built mechanical sculptures, put dynamite in them, blew them up and filmed the moment of the explosion. And Cornelia Parker not only arranged explosions, but also then collected fragments - she made a reconstruction of the explosion. She also cast the words of Shakespeare's sonnet in metal, went out to the cliff and threw these words into the sea in the order they were supposed to sound line by line. And I made "Mogul-mogul".

"Smoking Lips on the Asphalt" (1998)

Photo: Ksenia Kolesnikova

Bartenev:“I am a regular participant in Andrew Logan's British project Alternative Miss World. This is an endless performance in which everyone participates - from animals to people and robots. In 1998, he performed at the Smoking Lips on Asphalt facility. That year Pani Bronya, legendary in the Moscow art environment, won. I knew that she should win, and the British were sure that I definitely should have won: they knew my performances well. I advised them not to rush to conclusions - they still did not know who Pani Bronya was! I am happy that everything turned out this way: the gentle combination of advanced age and Panya Broni's acting stunned everyone. I was also happy for myself, it gave me great pleasure to perform in the “Smoking Lips on Asphalt” facility. And here it is in the museum. And the video next to it shows me standing in it - at Richmond Holographic Studios.

"Snow Queen" (1993)

Photo: Ksenia Kolesnikova

Bartenev:“This project was about how Russia opened its territory to the invasion of European and American goods. I took the fairy tale "The Snow Queen" as a basis, because she stole hearts in response to the talent of logistics. The same thing happened here: we were so naive, so joyful and traded all the joy for the possession of the unreal world of the supermarket. We showed this project in London at the Royal Festival Hall and the Victoria and Albert Museum, in Russia at the Tretyakov Gallery.”

"Botanical Ballet" (1992)

Photo: Ksenia Kolesnikova

Bartenev:“The pearl of my work is the Botanical Ballet of 1992. It included developments of both 1990 and 1991, which I made as part of the Fruit Poker project, there was such an association of Moscow artists. Then I already made the Botanical Ballet, with which we traveled all over Europe, showed both as a performance and an exhibition - at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Baden-Baden, the church in Basel at Art Basel.

From the "Botanical Ballet" - from the tension of color - my new sculpture of this year has grown ("Sea buckthorn". - Note. ed.). And "Botanical Ballet" grew out of children's games with snow in the city of Norilsk, where snow was a more accessible material than toys.

"Sea Buckthorn" (2015)

Photo: Ksenia Kolesnikova

Bartenev:“About the conflict between strict form and sucked balls: some aesthetic embellishment of time - and any time. We love ancient ruins, they were magnificent when they were created, but the beauty of destruction is hard to deny. These balls destroy the dynamic tension of the metal, but create the peculiar beauty of the dependents on the strings of the sculpture's metal."

Sviblova: « New job Barteneva is absolutely fantastic, it can be installed in any public space, it shows that we have the most powerful sculptural powers. It is no weaker than the monumental works of Koons and other great artists. Let's not be afraid to call what we see by their proper names, let's not be afraid to confess our love to Bartenev, because many in our the art world associate Andryusha only with performance”.

"Electric Aliens" (2004)

Photo: Ksenia Kolesnikova

Bartenev:“At first I showed this project as a performance: I moved on stage in a suit. The first time was at the Hippodrome nightclub on Leicester Square, which Andrew Logan turned into a venue for Alternative Miss World - then I was an alien (in complete darkness, the assistants carried Bartenev out in a luminous alien suit. - Note. ed.). Then I showed it in the “Etazhi” loft in St. Petersburg, and then in Berlin in a huge gallery space. In the form of an independent installation, I presented aliens in the Tretyakov Gallery, and the MMSI decided to purchase the installation for the collection. I wanted to show the project at Burning Man, but the museum said they don't lend their work to any "burning men". As for the technology, this is a 2004 development by NASA for luminous fabrics. And the installation itself is a prototype of my sculpture "Field of Lonely Hearts".

"Blow Kiss of the Trees" (2012)

Photo: Ksenia Kolesnikova

Bartenev:“My favorite performance was made for Archstoyanie in 2012. He talks about the fact that trees are absolutely fantastic creatures on our planet: they give us a reason to live, they give us oxygen. A kiss is just the oxygen they send us, but the trees don't have legs to run away from us, from our cruelty. We have shown various thoughts that trees broadcast into space. The most successful performance took place at one in the morning on a hill and under a spotlight. Everything that was captured by the spotlight seemed bright green and bright white, and everything in the shadows became terribly black. It was a completely biblical contrast between good and evil."

"Say: I love you" (2005)

Photo: Ksenia Kolesnikova

Bartenev:“The sound sculpture consists of an open spiral and 200 speakers that form eight cycles. There is a microphone in the center, a person comes up to him and says: “I love you”, and the phrase begins to fly through these speakers. This is primarily a psychological experience: I saw that many people are generally afraid to utter this phrase in their lives. To which I reply: practice! It helps: many lovers come here and confess their love to each other. The work was created for the First Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, and then became part of the MMSI (MMOMA) collection"

Sviblova:“This is an amazing job: it makes us do the most difficult thing, to say “I love you” - the most difficult existential gesture. These words each of us wants to hear, but they are so difficult to pronounce! There is an incredible contrast between the words and the aggressive form of the installation: it looks like a roller coaster or hills in a mountainous area, and the speakers look like octopus suckers. When we say these very words, we hear that our voice rolls in space, like an echo in the mountains. The form of the installation is amazing: it proves that we have before us the most delicate plastic sculptor. Many of Bartenev's performances have taken the form of sculptures, and I'm not afraid to say that he does not lose the competition with Louise Bourgeois, which is exhibited in the Garage. Somewhere they even express themselves plastically, referring to an aggressive form to reflect the world in which we live.

"Connection Lost. Field of Lonely Hearts" (2007)

Photo: Ksenia Kolesnikova

Bartenev:“This is a project capable of change, the mechanisms in it each time behave in a new way, which changes the original meaning. When you look into the endless space of hearts that are not connected to each other in any way, you can see that at some point they begin to turn into an abstract glow-impulse. When I realized this in Venice (the work was exhibited at the Venice Biennale curated by Olga Sviblova. - Note. ed.), then said that the artist is the programmer of a certain sculpture, which is engaged in self-reproduction and self-change. And thus the program scheme of the sculpture changes the final image and the context of what is happening. It was 2007 and so much has happened in the art of software in those nine years. And then it was just the first experience of what we could emotionally face. Only one thing depends on the artists - to direct the discovery to creation and love or destruction. I choose creation and love.”

Sviblova:“This is a model of our human community that goes into virtual space. Then it was not obvious - we only raised the question of what virtual space is. Today it already seems to us that as soon as we forget our phone, fall out of this space, then trouble happens. Thanks to this virtual communication, we get the feeling that we are together, although this is the same illusion as the relationship of a thousand people crowding into a disco. At some point, we still understand that everyone is dancing alone, that the more we are together, the more alone we are. Bartenev is a person who is incredibly sensitive to these moments of existential abandonment, and each time he overcomes them with his performances - just like a knight.