Площадь «Винзавода» превратится в подобие афинской агоры, ядро которой — памятник некоего вождя. В противовес фигуре установлен лифт, на котором любой желающий может подняться и встать на один уровень со скульптурой лидера. Рядом с постаментом художники создали образ «будущего» — упавший столп с цветными сидениями, отсылающий к обрушившейся в 1852 году колонне храма Зевса в Афинах. По версии «ЗИП» колонна со временем превратилась в обычную скамейку.
Проект «Равновесие с небольшой погрешностью» представлен в контексте цикла выставок самых известных молодых художников России «Прощание с вечной молодостью» — главного события «Винзавода», который в этом году празднует свое десятилетие.
The ZIP group’s new project invites audience to take on either an active or passive role inside an imitative public space. CCA WINZAVOD central atrium becomes the place where Event can possibly be realised, like in Ancient Greece, where agora, the market square surrounded by government buildings and monuments, served as a central public space.
ZIP group is known for their installations and objects that share a DIY or me-too aesthetics. Their seemingly simple and naive artistic language opens up a space of interactive interplay with audience who become fully competent co-authors. The new project leaves behind the ZIP’s traditional methods and offers audience an ethical choice.
The installation name “a slightly flawed balance” refers to Yakov Druskin concept popular in Harms & Vvedensky circles. For Druskin, a “slight flaw” is a tiny element, an offset, a situation that forces the entire system to leave its stable equilibrium and renew itself constantly. In this context, the 1917 Revolution can be seen as that very “offset”, a sum of multidirectional forces that changes both micro- and macrostructure.
The three main parts of the installation are metaphors of this movement. The first is the vertical axis of power, it is a column crowned with the monument to anonymous leader who raises his right hand in a familiar gesture. The second part is a collapsed column, shattered to pieces just like separated communities. Apart from its decorative function, it received a new role now, being a cozy place to sit and relax. Colourful seats are covered by the arrow-shaped sunshade that points to the third and the main element of the installation. Behind the scaffolding overgrown with posters, slogans and signs, hides the elevator. After fulfilling little bureaucratic formalities, anyone can order to be serviced by the attendant, who can courteously assist with rising to the level of eye contact with the monument. Thus the movement spins in circles of inevitable processes of decline and ascent, which are a part of natural rhythm of life of a human, society and state.
Anastasia Shavlohova
