Variations on Jazz Themes Automatic translate

On September 20, 2018, the second exhibition from the EAST MEETS WEST GALLERY cycle “Music Everywhere” entitled “Variations on Jazz Themes” will open at the ARTPLAY Design Center.

This exhibition could rightfully be called not “Variations on Jazz Themes”, but “Counterpoint”. After all, it is he who in musical terminology means “… a certain type of polyphony, characterized by a combination of developed and meaningful contrasting melodies…; a combination of unity and contrast at the same time, corresponding to the aesthetic standards of the era… ”(Musical Encyclopedic Dictionary edited by G.V. Keldysh, 1990).

Almost twenty authors of different generations of artists, different styles and directions of visual arts are united on one site with a voluntary choice of a curator. Is this not a combination of unity and contrast at the same time?!

The gallery of figurative works is opened by the academic work of Karina Nazarova “Blues” (2005). The temperament of the singer and author, expressed in an almost fresco painting with the main figure of an African singer in red, fascinates and attracts. Her “… expressive, rhythmically clear accented painting was born in the spirit of the originality of blues harmony” (N. Ivanov, “Karina Nazarova. Island of Painting”, 2015).

The love of jazz, knowledge of jazz standards and performers is expressed by Alexei Lantsev in absolute pictorial freedom, the improvisation of his manner, in the mixture of different techniques (acrylic, tempera, watercolors). Almost all of his genre graphic sheets are made from nature during concerts. This also applies to the famous artist and sculptor Ivan Tarasyuk from St. Petersburg. His canvases and graphics of a genre nature associated with the Russian and Western European avant-garde Pablo Picasso, Fernand Leger, Natalia Goncharova, often bear the characteristic features of a folk toy of the Middle Ages, the masks of which reflected one emotion, one movement of the soul, one gesture. New easel works by Vera Elnitskaya were created at the junction of figurative and abstract painting in the framework of the Moscow school from Konstantin Korovin to Robert Falk and in the system of impressionism.

In abstract works by artists Konstantin Inal-IP, Vladimir Pankratov, Natalya Sitnikova, Evgeny Tsipulin, the theme of jazz is diverse in style and color. Each of these authors is unique in its plastic, creative manner and technique.

Konstantin Inal-Ipa deeply feels the nature of jazz and builds the compositions of his works on the basis of contrasting combinations of volumes, different surfaces and color.

Vladimir Pankratov did not specifically work with the theme of jazz, but many of his works are not only constructive and symbolic, but also very musical. He himself writes about it this way: "In every thing of his painting, I was led by a special musical movement, and the rhythm arose from nowhere, but it was felt clearly."

The “Etudes” by Natalya Sitnikova, on the one hand, reflect the main mechanism of the author’s artistic thought, in which she “… combined“ physical geography ”with“ spiritual geography ”, the infinity of eastern meditative spaces with European determination (V. Patsyukov). On the other hand, they reveal a combination of drama and contrast of her image with different rhythmic pieces, where there is a place for a bright explosion and a stopped moment.

Based on the traditions of Vasily Kandinsky, Eugene Tsipulin, often compares his work with jazz improvisation. Line, color and freedom. His graphics and painting are one essence, in which the main thing is absolute freedom of expression.

Classical sculpture is presented by the authors of one generation, for whom bronze is “frozen music”. Two works by Mikhail Dronov from absolutely different eras: “Because Summer” (1996) - joyful, lively, African, associated with the early stage of jazz development in America; and Lullaby (2018), which recalls the folklore genre, interest in gospel, soul, and then the blues.

The relief performed by Victor Korneev (Pressure series, 2003) is especially interesting in the contrasting combination of a wooden background, likened to soft fabric, in which the plane acquires volume, and the figures froze in a certain, almost dancing, movement. Oleg Kievsky has been specially working with the images of jazz musicians for twenty years. Especially he succeeds saxophonists. The image and spiritualization of the object in the sculpture is presented by Olga Khan in the work “Jazz” (2016). Her play with designs, colors, surfaces gives objects an additional charge of “musicality” and improvisation.

Among the works of Gennady Troshkov, only one is directly devoted to jazz - this is the work "Improvisation" (2011). Sheets from a series of ink on paper 2015-2016. continue the tradition of metaphysical compositions of the author, creating a synthesis of objects that "open" the personal space of the artist. Bright, explosive, joyful graphics of 2017 include notes of jazz chords in his "paradoxes of consciousness".

The diptych, presented by Vasily Vlasov, consists of two contrasting works that combine the presence of biomorphic structures placed in a different color environment. This contrast between the environment and objects reminds one of blues pipe improvisations, then the rhythmic, spasmodic pulsation of percussion and wind instruments in dance jazz pieces of the 20-30s of the 20th century.

The short-frequency waves in Vladimir Peldyakov’s Light Composition, vibrating with light and color, rhyme not only with breathing and heartbeat, but also with a constant change of rhythms in jazz compositions.

In “Variations” a new work by Andrei and Timofei Korovins “Transformer-improviser” is presented. Graphic artist and painter Andrei Korovin occasionally designs in the genre of installation and object. “We combined color and form, in our opinion, in the best way. The design allows you to create many options for color combinations, the space changes color, the form forms the space. The game develops imagination ”(T. Korovin).

The objects of “Syncope” by Maria Kalmykova and “Chattanooga Chu-chu” Maxim Protsenko were specially made for this exhibition. Maxim Protsenko’s transforming steam engine demonstrates a non-trivial approach to solving the figurative-plastic composition of a sculpture-object.

Despite the narrow thematic focus of the exhibition “Variations on Jazz Themes”, it demonstrates a rather broad section of the searches and experiments of artists of different generations and directions, from images of direct art to symbol images, metaphysical transformers and other experiments with surfaces, colors and materials.

Curator Tatyana Paleeva

The exhibition runs at the ARTPLAY Design Center from September 20 to October 20, 2018.

st. Nizhnyaya Syromyatnicheskaya, 10, p. 3, floor 2