Sergey Bugaev-Africa "REBUS" Automatic translate

The exhibition presents works ranging from early experiments from the 1990s to monumental canvases created in the 2020s, such as "Quantum Rebus," a "quantum rebus" in which a vortex of symbols forms a new universe, or "Quadruple Unsolved Rebus," an attempt to find archetypal order in chaos itself. Each work is not an object, but an event and a territory. It is an invitation to dialogue, where the viewer becomes a co-author, and their perception is the final stage of the creative act.

It all begins with a simple children’s riddle and turns into a complex philosophical tool for diagnosing time, archaeologically exploring the collective psyche, and searching for language after a catastrophe.

Sergei Bugaev-Afrika was fascinated by puzzles since childhood, often copying them from magazines. Over time, he accumulated a vast archive, which became part of his artistic method.

The project is based on a series of fundamental questions that transform the exhibition from a collection of artifacts into an intense philosophical and anthropological inquiry. These questions have no definitive answers, but their framing defines the radical relevance of art.

This exhibition becomes a mirror of our current reality. We are once again living in an era of fracture — a semantic fracture, information overload, a clash of truths. Old languages are once again failing. Afrika’s works, born at the moment of historical breakdown in the 1990s, prove to be strikingly contemporary. They offer not ready-made answers, but a methodology for existing in conditions of semantic uncertainty. They teach us not to fear chaos, but to view it as a fertile environment where new, more complex and honest forms of poetry and thought can sprout from the fragments of old codes.

The exhibition is held in the main building of the gallery.