 Symmetrical Landscape (from Three-Day Weekend), 2004-2005 mixed media on paper, 30 x 40 inches overall Vitaly Komar Three-Day Weekend Vitaly Komar will exhibit new works based on the theme of the "Three-Day Weekend", a symbol of the peaceful coexistence of different peoples and different concepts of faith and spirituality: Friday for Muslims, Saturday for Jews, and Sunday for Christians. The artworks - paintings, stained glass panels, and collages - are based on the form of the mandala, traditionally associated with unity, healing, and meditation, and are intended to promote the concept of the "Three-day Weekend". Several mandalas contain a mirror, and one has a hole that can accommodate the spectator's face, which can then be photographed, allowing the viewer to establish a personal connection with eternal symbols of spirituality. During the exhibition, the artist invites those who find value in these concepts to receive a signed Polaroid mandala portrait as a gift. The artworks combine personal, historical, and spiritual references. The series stems from two Post-War photographs that had been superimposed in the artist's memory: the legendary image of the Yalta Conference, which depicts Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill, and another triple portrait, of Komar's family, taken when he was six. Both record what the artist calls "Fragile Unities". The peaceful aspirations of the conference were followed by the Cold War, and his parents' Jewish/Christian marriage dissolved in divorce. Komar never saw his father again. The photographs are collaged with revered religious shapes, including the Christian cross, the Jewish Star of David, and the Muslim crescent, which in turn are intertwined to create a complicated celestial geometry. Themes of passing time and nostalgia permeate the exhibition. Reoccurring images include an hourglass and a Jewish cemetery in ruins. Symbols of state power that have been used to divide groups - the hammer and sickle, the American eagle - recall the ironic iconoclasm of SOTS ART, established with his collaborator Alex Melamid at a time when dissident artists in the former Soviet Union had dreams of visionary alternatives to totalitarianism. As part of the longtime collaborative duo, Komar and Melamid, Komar describes his first solo exhibition as a new departure and deeply personal. In an artist's statement, he writes: The search for spirituality in art, begun by Kandinsky during the flowering of the Russian avant-garde, was interrupted first by Stalin, and later, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, by the advent of the capitalist free market. I never imagined that my artist friends and I would be transformed from the so-called avant-garde of spiritual and intellectual life to the avant-garde of real estate. At the beginning of the 21st century, both in Russia and in the West, we have gained much, but have forgotten much too, just as I had forgotten my childhood photograph. For almost thirty years, the Feldman Gallery has represented Komar & Melamid, including their first exhibition of work smuggled out of the Soviet Union in 1976. Exhibition: June 18 - July 29, 2005 Gallery hours: Mon-Thu 10 am - 6 pm, Fri 10 am - 3 pm Ronald Feldmann Fine Art 31 Mercer Street USA-New York, NY 10013 Telephone +1 212 226-3232 Fax +1 212 941-1536 Email info@feldmangallery.com www.feldmangallery.com |
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