This project is a deliberate attempt to perpetuate a purely temporary phenomenon. The work’s recovered objects existed in cities all over the world and are connected by an international language and simplicity of form repeated in different contexts: cross, circle, spot, line, silhouette. The duration of their existence was fleeting – from several minutes to several days. The resulting short-lived harmony could disappear forever. In this case, it is the artist’s task to observe, compare, and fixate.
Artist Info
Born in 1971 in Leningrad, Petr Belyigraduated in 1989 from the Secondary Art School of the Academy of Arts, and studied ceramics at Mukhina Academy of Art and Design from 1990 to 1992. He lived in London from 1995 to 2001 and graduated from Camberwell College in 2000 with a Masters in Printmaking. He lives and works in St Petersburg, Russia, working in printmaking, sculpture and installation. He teaches at the Smolny College in St Petersburg and is a member of the Russian Union of Artists and the Royal Society of Printmakers.Alexander Evangely, describes Belyi’s process and ideas in his essay Petr Belyi, Working Materials: “…his work with used materials was related to clarifying what the discarded material was saying and how it was saying it. Apart from the idea of uselessness, and of being unnecessary, which art and rubbish both share, the relationship of the material and time was important to the artist. The idea of time itself accumulating in objects and leaving its mark, but also work around the idea of the ephemerality of its tracks and of touching on the order of loss.”
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