The strange word "per-sim-fan", reminiscent of performance, is actually an abbreviation of the 1920s. In 1922, the FIRST SYMPHONIC ENSEMBLE was created under the Moscow City Council, in which there was no conductor, but in its composition there were virtuoso masters and all decisions were made collectively. The Moscow Orchestra was the first such experience in the world, so its name has every right to mean something without a conductor. This title was awarded to the exhibition by its curator - Director of the Museum of Architecture David Sargsyan, after which he left and gave the twelve participating architects complete freedom of expression in the space of the Ruin wing. The role of the curator in this sense turned out to be simply wonderful: to withdraw, leaving a mark on itself in the form of a name, denoting the fact that the curator has withdrawn, it is very conceptual.
And the exhibition turned out to be pleasant, one might even say that it has collected in itself most of the pleasant things that usually happened at Arch Moscow. The semi-dark interior of the ruin, in which various objects are placed, is very suitable for her. And it also reminds a little of last year's "Maternity" in VKHUTEMAS - there, too, architects made objects on a given theme, but here the size is not limited.
By the way about the given topic. There is no conductor-curator, but there is a theme, common to all - the very same “how to live”. But it is not necessary to think about this topic either. Therefore, some of the objects "reveal" the theme, the other echoes with it, and finally, the third does not echo in any way or very, very distantly. This is encouraging, because it creates a sense of freedom after some regulation of most of the other non-profit Biennial projects focused on research, study or presentation of the results of something. Here statements, signatures are optional, and not all of them even have names. However, as in the legendary band of the 1920s, everything turned out to be extremely holistic and professionally played, despite the declared lack of leadership (or thanks?).
The most active was the project of Eugene and Kirill Ass. This is a TV showing a slideshow composed of photographs of the house built by Yevgeny's father and Kirill's grandfather, Viktor, and in which the Assov family of architects lived. Photos of 1947 were found in the family archive, there are magnificent, Stalinist-style expensive interiors, a photo of his father at the construction site of a house and even the very apartment in which Yevgeny Ass lived. The installation is called "Our House" and is accompanied by a kind of music, consisting of one repeating chord, most of all reminiscent of the sound of tuning some double bass before a concert. The repetitive sound dominates the quiet space of the Ruins (it stands in the back of the courtyard and street noises do not reach here) and thus goes beyond the scope of one object, claiming to unite and even interpret the name of the entire exhibition - does not allow forgetting about the symphony orchestra. Maybe without the conductor they didn't play more than one note? No, everything worked out, and very harmoniously.
On the other hand, one can reason like this: the creation of objects is such a creative activity of architects that allows them to express themselves in a more artistic form than in conventional design. These objects, descendants and memories of "paper architecture" are in some way a way for an architect to tune himself in the right way, and therefore an exhibition is not an orchestra performance (this orchestra acts in a serious way when designing and building houses), but only his "Tuning before the show". Consequently, when we find ourselves in the hall of the architectural "Persimfax" we find ourselves inside the very preliminary process that inevitably precedes the concert. Only before the concert it lasts a few minutes, but here it is looped, so we spin around the hall to the rhythm of the repetition of this strange non-melodic sound of tuning …
This, however, is only one of the interpretations. Objects can be divided into two groups: there are objects themselves, more or less purposefully speaking on the topic of housing, and there are objects that represent specific works of architects.
Of the first, the Mausoleum from Yuri Avvakumov is significant - he meets those who enter the exhibition. The model of the Mausoleum, very similar to Shchusevsky (that is, Leninsky, built by the architect A. V. Shchusev), is entirely composed of dominoes, but not the usual black and white, or rather ivory, in a word, similar to bones. A mausoleum of bones - very symbolic, because we have a mausoleum? - bones; well, he himself is made of bones. It turns out even better if you put it on the theme of the Biennale "how to live" - this is how one should live! Either in it, or on it … In general, with him.
It should be added here that the Bone Mausoleum continues the series of Avvakum's "Games", which began a long time ago, and was shown last year in the Stella Art gallery.
The center of the Ruins space is occupied by a tower erected by Mikhail Labazov and Andrey Savin (Art-Bla). These authors are known, among many others, for sculpting their giant objects out of some material at hand. For a long time, transparent scotch tape was used, human figures were obtained from it, and here is a white porous insulation (a modernized type of foam rubber, this is now used to plug cracks in windows). It is stacked in rows in something gigantic and non-linear, taller than the wooden beams of the Ruins. As if it had sprouted. Glows from the inside. Tubular strips are held together by plastic cords, the tails of which stick out evenly in all directions and make the subject pubescent. If you look for architecture here, then it should be a model of a skyscraper. It has everything - many floors of foam rubber strips, and the main desire is to grow higher - instead of the sky, it scrapes the beams, the conditional sky of the exhibition hall, and even grows higher, that is, apparently up to the seventh sky. True, if this is a model of a skyscraper, then, like all objects A-B, it turned out to be alive, soft and anthropomorphic, if I may say so. Expresses, in other words, the basic essence of a skyscraper.
At the wall behind the skyscraper is a small doll-sized room, all parts of which were sculpted by Alexander Brodsky (by the way, he also designed the exposition) of clay on an iron grating. There is: in the center there is a hearth with a high chimney, in the hearth an artificial fire is burning from pieces of matter illuminated and trembling by means of a fan, which illuminate the space of the cell in a very natural caravaggist manner. Around the hearth: a table, a chair, a bed, a bathtub with a shower tube (such as are still sometimes found in kitchens of five-story buildings, equipped with a water heater), a well-lit toilet bowl. On the table is a flat clay monitor and a small piece of clay in front of it - a mouse. That's right, but what else is needed for life?
In fact, this cell is a very logically built model of the space of life. In the center is the hearth, it is both the axis (pipe) and the core (the fire itself) of this space. The scheme according to which the archetype of the idea of a dwelling is built is as follows: around the wall, inside the hearth. The concession to the audience is one open wall, and it turns out "behind the glass", more precisely behind the bars. Around the hearth (very cozy in appearance) the most necessary items for a modern person, including a computer and plumbing. The model of the universe of one person, close and familiar, despite the archetypal nature.
Further, the clay on the grate cracks and sprinkles with squares, scabs. That is, this world, it is being destroyed. Because of the lattice, because of this fragile clay, destruction is laid in it. I would not be surprised if it sprinkles completely by the end of the exhibition and that this is exactly what was conceived. A skeleton will remain - a lattice frame. On what they stuck, to that in the end they came. The cycle. To be honest, at first I suspected that fuel oil was coming from somewhere to the clay shelter and, sniffing, began to peer at the bottom of the cube. But no, there is no need for fuel oil, it will crumble anyway. Brodsky's room is probably the most demiurgic answer to the topic, and even stretched out in time. This is probably that part of the Persimfax that he got from the performance - there is no mechanical replay of the video with the help of the media, but there is a quiet life of abandoned housing, crumbling without people.
By the way, the clay on the grating is probably a metaphor for reinforced concrete. Then everything falls into place. This is not just a model, but the cells of the 20th century being.
Next door, the architects of Icing placed something very similar to the Pantheon underground and presented the layout in a very natural cutaway layout, with grass on top so there was no doubt that the Pantheon was in a bunker. The commentary drawing shows us that a column of light should hit from the ground at night. And therefore, the Pantheon is the other way around - in the present, a column of light comes from the sky, here it itself becomes the source of such a ray beating upward.
The only installation that does not stand in space, but occupies a room, a room in the corner of the Ruins, looks the most European and somehow socially responsible, or something. But not without fun. It is written in front of the entrance - 70 million square meters will be built in Moscow by 2025. meters of housing, which is equivalent to 2500 houses of the standard series. And then - in a dotted line, they say, before proceeding, it would be nice to improve this technology, and it is better to such an extent that the existing terrible environment is not aggravated by this construction, but is transformed into something humane. And inside the whole room is pasted over with boxes, except for the floor, but including the ceiling. As a warning. Honestly, this is just "our answer" to the exhibition of the master plan. If you go there (in the State Tretyakov Gallery) now and look, then you can make sure that they are already going to build a panel good.
Nearby is the Meganoma object, the most beautiful and delicate in the literal sense. This is a house-parallelepiped made of thick paper, cut through with thin ornaments, with half-open windows. It glows very nicely, the paper is slightly, the slots are stronger, and looks like a lantern. Nearby, on the strip of the also luminous surface, there are sketches and "drawings" of the house-lamp. It is called - Kabanon. It is a French word meaning "little hut" and in argot it means "prison." There is also a comic book series and a painting by Cézanne with that name. At the Meganoma facility, we seem to be dealing with a hut.
The DNA team created an image of the quarter with bricks. One brick - one blocked house. Beneath them is a glowing green glass, apparently grass, but it looks harsh, although it scatters colored reflexes around it. Life, flowing in block bricks, is drawn in black silhouettes on transparent plates superimposed on each other. If you look at everything together, it turns out to be vanity; if you look at it separately, you get plot sketches.
There are three objects showing real projects. Nikolay Lyzlov put the house on the street. Ordzhinikidze, showing him a very small bronze model. The layout, however, is interesting in that it allows you to look at this house differently - it turns out that it is dotted with protrusions of identical square bay windows. In the project and in reality, this sameness - and this simplicity of form, is hidden by the coloring.
Vladimir Plotkin was the most laconic of all, having put forward one project - a part of the Zarechye village, which is currently being designed by TPO "Reserve".
One thing seems to be a transition between an object and an exhibition of an architectural project. Sergey Skuratov hung a large paper tape on the wall - a printout of his projects' renderings. Above, with a poster pen and black ink - something is printed, something is written; some of the writing is from Kafka. The tape hangs on the wall, but vertically in Japanese, and stretches along the floor, you have to walk on it. The result is a typically Russian project - between east and west. And note that here is the most information about the works of the workshop.
So, the exhibition with the difficult to pronounce name Persimfans has absorbed almost all the installations that have come to the share of Arch of Moscow this year in its “biennial” reincarnation. On the one hand, this is good - all representatives of the genre, which presupposes no more creative than an analytical way of understanding the topic, are brought together. In the Ruin they are certainly better than on the Crimean shaft. The interior is conducive to viewing and thinking, objects look better in it, and they are further from the hustle and bustle of a commercial exhibition. The exhibition gained from moving to Vozdvizhenka, but the Central House of Artists lost something important.
the exhibition will run until June 22
