First Ural Industrial Biennale of Contemporary Art
Special project:
Anastasia Khoroshilova
2010
From the newspapers . . .
''ART AND LIFE''
"...There are families in Yekaterinburg in which all the able-bodied members are employed by the same factory. Work gives them what they need to exist, to raise children, study. To live according to a plan. To dress, eat and use their free time to pursue personal interests, whether at the movies, the theatre or the concert hall. Or in a city park. Or they can travel beyond the city. Much in life depends, too, on our aesthetic tastes - the decorating of one's apartment, house or summer cottage. There we are sure to see the things we love most. We buy things specially to beautify our living spaces, or perhaps they are gifts from friends, relatives, acquaintances. It is just these things - paintings, children's drawings, posters, colourful calendars, favourite illustrations clipped from magazines - that make a home cosy and comfortable and tell us a great deal about the personalities of the family members. One can't but smile at little porcelain figures, at vases that not long ago were holding the lovely flowers of summer, at souvenirs that one or another relative brought back from a vacation, a business trip, a tourist expedition. All of this helps us live with beauty, helps us find rest in our family settings and to rebuild the strength needed for the new working day...
... at this point who can say whose idea it was to make photographs of such art objects as enhance the interiors of our apartments and use them in places where work is done at the Yekaterinburg factory, Uralmash. How much joy came into the lives of factory workers when, far from home and in the midst of the workday, they found themselves surrounded by these objects - so familiar and so dear to the heart and the eye! For a time, there was no hurrying home after work. Work became happier, and productivity rose in these more home-like surroundings. In other words, male and female workers were producing more, earning more and finding it possible to put something by.
... So it is that art helps our nation's economy grow and qualitatively raises the level of life of our people."
Technical Description: Photographs taken of art-objects (paintings, sculptures, photographs, furniture and so on) in apartments and homes, other living spaces of male and female workers of Yekaterinburg factory Uralmash.
Project Presupposes: The possibility of visual conceptualizing through photography of the aesthetic of living quarters, of domestic spaces. A division of ordinary objects into objects intended to beautify a living space, to bring to it elements of style vs. objects fulfilling other functions (transformation of the space into a kind of family archive or museum; meeting the demands of the time for interior arrangements, and so on).
The conception is based on the "provocative" effect occurring when the familiar and well-known is encountered in an unexpected place and in the absence of a clearly formulated purpose or of clear notions of the consequences of the encounter.
The display of photographs of objects that hint at close but hidden associations with individuals in an area that, by definition, excludes such personal flavours may evoke most unusual and untraditional reactions and emotions on the part of viewers. And the photograph itself becomes a "decorative" fragment of an interior, the littlest, most central, "matryoshka," which holds, archive-like, memories and markers that send the observer toward the earlier form of the existence of the depicted (the photographed).
The photographs (in various formats) are set up in all the factory's working spaces (where technically feasible) where the owners of the objects work.
Special project:
Anastasia Khoroshilova
2010
From the newspapers . . .
''ART AND LIFE''
"...There are families in Yekaterinburg in which all the able-bodied members are employed by the same factory. Work gives them what they need to exist, to raise children, study. To live according to a plan. To dress, eat and use their free time to pursue personal interests, whether at the movies, the theatre or the concert hall. Or in a city park. Or they can travel beyond the city. Much in life depends, too, on our aesthetic tastes - the decorating of one's apartment, house or summer cottage. There we are sure to see the things we love most. We buy things specially to beautify our living spaces, or perhaps they are gifts from friends, relatives, acquaintances. It is just these things - paintings, children's drawings, posters, colourful calendars, favourite illustrations clipped from magazines - that make a home cosy and comfortable and tell us a great deal about the personalities of the family members. One can't but smile at little porcelain figures, at vases that not long ago were holding the lovely flowers of summer, at souvenirs that one or another relative brought back from a vacation, a business trip, a tourist expedition. All of this helps us live with beauty, helps us find rest in our family settings and to rebuild the strength needed for the new working day...
... at this point who can say whose idea it was to make photographs of such art objects as enhance the interiors of our apartments and use them in places where work is done at the Yekaterinburg factory, Uralmash. How much joy came into the lives of factory workers when, far from home and in the midst of the workday, they found themselves surrounded by these objects - so familiar and so dear to the heart and the eye! For a time, there was no hurrying home after work. Work became happier, and productivity rose in these more home-like surroundings. In other words, male and female workers were producing more, earning more and finding it possible to put something by.
... So it is that art helps our nation's economy grow and qualitatively raises the level of life of our people."
Technical Description: Photographs taken of art-objects (paintings, sculptures, photographs, furniture and so on) in apartments and homes, other living spaces of male and female workers of Yekaterinburg factory Uralmash.
Project Presupposes: The possibility of visual conceptualizing through photography of the aesthetic of living quarters, of domestic spaces. A division of ordinary objects into objects intended to beautify a living space, to bring to it elements of style vs. objects fulfilling other functions (transformation of the space into a kind of family archive or museum; meeting the demands of the time for interior arrangements, and so on).
The conception is based on the "provocative" effect occurring when the familiar and well-known is encountered in an unexpected place and in the absence of a clearly formulated purpose or of clear notions of the consequences of the encounter.
The display of photographs of objects that hint at close but hidden associations with individuals in an area that, by definition, excludes such personal flavours may evoke most unusual and untraditional reactions and emotions on the part of viewers. And the photograph itself becomes a "decorative" fragment of an interior, the littlest, most central, "matryoshka," which holds, archive-like, memories and markers that send the observer toward the earlier form of the existence of the depicted (the photographed).
The photographs (in various formats) are set up in all the factory's working spaces (where technically feasible) where the owners of the objects work.