From the 14th to the 23rd of February Form&Bronze Gallery took part in the international art fair “Ponaehali!”, which was held in St. Petersburg ExpoForum. The exhibition was organized by the exhibition association “Perm Fair” – a member of the Russian Union of Exhibitions and Fairs (RUEF), a member of the Global Association of the Exhibition Industry (UFI), which brought together under one roof more than 400 artists from 15 countries and 45 cities of Russia. St. Petersburg has not seen such a large-scale event for a long time.
The opening ceremony of the exhibition turned out to be a whole theatrical action organized by the theatre director Vladimir Gurfinkel. Exactly at 22:10, an improvised plane made of cardboard boxes began to go up, and the audience was able to meet the artists and participants of the exhibition who were waiting for them at the end of the central alley to take them to the world of art. The entire art fair went hand in hand with an extensive program of master classes and lectures, including “Confession” by Marat Gelman and the presentation of the book of poems by Sergey Kazuk.
The concept of the exhibition with the bright title “Ponaehali!” (which means “they have arrived”, concerning people, who came from somewhere to any other city) allowed each participant to feel at ease, there were no strangers, there was only a feeling of holiday and festival throughout the art fair. Visitors were open both to paintings by artists from Africa and to underground works. In this regard, the exhibition turned out to be very multi-faceted, where famous authors, such as Andrey Belle, Latif Kazbekov, Vyacheslav Mikhailov, as well as beginners were on the same platform. Not only the number of exhibitors, but also an abundance of areas of creativity made this event large-scale: at the exhibition you could find everything from items of the gunsmith’s shop, Soviet film posters and dolls, to sculpture, painting and jewelry.
Form&Bronze Gallery presented some of the most iconic works of authors from its collection. At the art fair, one could find the most prominent sculptures of Arsen Avetissian: “Reflections on the Little Prince”, “Circus is coming!”, “Coffee Break”, which have already become symbols of the city. The works of Andrey Ostashov from the new series “Inner Piece” and retrospective of the works by Albert Avetissian, from 1997 to our days. Also a separate part pf the exposition was occupied by two sculptures by Sergey Kondrashkin “Kukulkan” and by Gleb Kryukov “Swirl of consiousness”.
The second part of the exposition was dedicated to the projects of the gallery. One of the very first projects, dedicated to ballet, received a new sound thanks to Aramare Veccchio’s sculpture “Music of the Dance”, made in a more modern manner, stepping back from classical canons. Particular attention was paid to the project “Two Sides of Creativity”, which was partly presented at “Ponaehali!”. The sculpture “Through the Looking Glass” by Alexey Kiryanov is a wily jester, literally descended from the painting and embodied in bronze. Also as part of this project, painter Alexander Krylov painted Aramare Vecchio’s sculpture “Adam and Eve”, rediscovering the work and making it the most popular photo zone on the stand. The third project “Golf. Game as Art” was presented almost in full. Spectators could watch the sculptor’s fantasy, how literary characters (Don Quixote and Sancho Panza) and historical figures (Queen Elizabeth, Churchill, Trump) would play golf. Visitors of the exhibition could also play golf with professional sports equipment, get a master class from the curator of the project Eduard Bychkov and feel like a real athlete on the golf course.
Form&Bronze Gallery showed itself at the highest level and was awarded an honorary diploma from the organizing committee of “Ponaehali!”.
Photos: organizing committee of the exhibition “Ponaehali!”, Igor Ivanov
