RUSSIA: Russian land-artist creates large-scale art objects in rural area with the help of young locals, making an exhibition that have attracted international attention

Record ID: 1531089

  • Title: RUSSIA: Russian land-artist creates large-scale art objects in rural area with the help of young locals, making an exhibition that have attracted international attention
  • Date: 19th August 2011
  • Summary: POLISSKY'S 'UNIVERSAL MIND' CONSTRUCTION VARIOUS OF POLISSKY AND HIS WORKERS EATING DINNER AT TABLE INSIDE ONE OF ART WORKS PART OF ART WORK (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) NIKOLAY POLISSKY'S ASSISTANT DMITRY MOZGUNOV, SAYING: "Most of all I like that every day is different, there is always something new, new ideas, so the mind does not stop at one thing, it (this work) broadens your mind." VARIOUS OF 'FIREBIRD' SCULPTURE BY POLISSKY VARIOUS OF ART CONSTRUCTIONS IN FIELD
  • Embargoed: 2nd September 2011 20:22
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Russian Federation
  • Country: Russian Federation
  • Topics: Art,Arts / Culture / Entertainment,Human Interest / Brights / Odd News,Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
  • Reuters ID: LVA1QVMPKFS3YLA4ZOEX0D7WT77Y
  • Aspect Ratio: 4:3
  • Story Text: Huge wooden lighthouse near a river, a giant beehive tower in the middle of a Russian field and a big iron bird in the woods - all of these objects which amaze locals and by-passers in a Russian provincial village were built by Russian artists some 300 kilometres away from Moscow.
    It all started when one of the Russian architects, Vasily Schetinin, came to the Nikola-Lenivets village in Kaluga region in the end of 1980s, with an idea to build a home for artists where they could live and create their objects using natural landscape.
    Schetinin settled in the village and one by one his friends - artists, architects and designers - moved to Nikola-Lenivets in search of a quiet getaway from hardships and rush of modern city life. One of them, Nikolay Polissky, who moved to the village in 2000, decided to quit painting and become a land artist. His first project was 220 snowmen placed in various parts of the village, which he had made with the help of local residents.
    "I have been painting for about ten years, before the year 2000. But then I decided I want to do something using real space. The first (art objects) were the Snowmen. Local people helped me to build them and I understood that there are huge resources here. They are absolutely free and the land is free - nobody cared much about the land back then," Polissky recalled.
    In ten years the artist have built dozens of art constructions and have turned the majority of Nikola-Lenivets residents into artists.
    "There are not much places, actually I think this is the only place where village people help the artist professionally, where they are involved in art understanding that they are actually making art. They go to Venetian Biennale with me, to the Luxembourg Museum of Contemporary Art, to Paris and we have just returned from Milan," Polissky said.
    Since 2000 Polissky, 54, so far the only Russian land-artist, have participated in a number of art exhibitions around the world, and have made it to the short-lists of several prestigious art prizes, like Kandinsky prize in 2009. Starting from 2003 he organised the annual 'ArchStoyanie' landscape art festival in Nikola-Lenivets, with Russian and foreign artists taking part, which have been attracting hundreds of people each year.
    With wooden installations featuring unearthly creatures Polissky's strange land had become a sort of Utopia for artists and local citizens.
    "I have been here for about five years. After serving in the army I worked in a different place at first, and then came here, to my homeland. My friends worked here (with Polissky) and I came here too to chat and to see what they were doing. I stayed for a couple of days, then started making something myself and I liked it. So I stayed," one of Polissky's assistants Alexey Gusev said.
    Polissky's projects not only provided jobs to people in Nikola-Lenivets and nearby villages, but also gave them an opportunity to express themselves in art - a rare, if not unique occasion for Russian province.
    "Most of all I like that each day is not the same as others, there is always something new, new ideas, so the mind does not stop at one thing, it (this work) broadens your mind," one of Polissky's assistants, local artist Dmitry Mozgunov said, smiling.
    Each year the land art festival in Nikola-Lenivets leaves the village with more and more art objects, like a giant iron "Firebird" which burned and spewed flames at the ArchStoyanie in 2008 or parts of 'Large Hadron Collider', which are being moved from one place to another after they were exhibited in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Luxembourg in 2009.
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