See The Material And Create

2024 Author: David Durham | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-09 00:51

The weighty volume (however, there are no others in Tatlin's MONO series) does not set itself the task of summing up the creative career of the renowned duo of designers; rather, it is an interim report on the work done. And what are the results if the career is in full swing: Kuzmin and Savinkin are meeting the twentieth anniversary of their joint creative activity at the peak of their popularity, and the POLE design group created by them personifies for the public not only modern Russian design, but all the most daring and innovative in it. “In each of their projects, the authors invent something new, or rather, in their own words, they see something new in the world around them and strive to show the common people. Their projects are shocking, but at the same time successful - and this is a symptom, a symptom reflecting the fact that even in a world where everything seems to be invented, you only need to slightly turn the angle of view in order to be at the forefront,”says the annotation to monographs, and in this it is difficult to disagree with the publishers.

Actually, it is about this ability to see the unusual in the simple, and the most unusual to adapt to everyday needs, and the exhibition "Materials Vision" is dedicated, which Savinkin and Kuzmin have already shown in several cities of the Russian Federation, and on the eve of the publication of the monograph they unrolled in the Central House of Artists (DNK hall). Here were collected the most famous works of POLE design - "Fish", "Cocoon", "Ear", "Squid", "Souffle", etc. Some are in the form of tiny fiberglass models, more like bedside lamps, others in the form of large-sized installations made of cardboard and wood, and others as heroes of videos that were shown on two walls of the hall of four. As the architectural critic Nikolai Malinin (the author of the introductory article to the monograph) noted very accurately at the presentation of the book, there were no unfamiliar exhibits at the exhibition, but Savinkin and Kuzmin designed them so masterly and distributed them in the space of the hall that thereby gave them a new, even more perky and fresh sound. And indeed, something was constantly happening in the hall: drawings, plans and photographs flashed, mock-ups flashed with multi-colored lights, all the time someone strove to either saddle or at least touch the long Shapkon. And then the authors themselves appeared in the thick of things - Savinkin in his bowler hat and Kuzmin in a cocked hat and an orange jacket - just as funny, cheeky and free from prejudices as their works.

With the publishing house Tatlin, they publicly reproached each other for a long time and cheerfully: the editor-in-chief Eduard Kubensky said that they were impossible people, but very interesting so as not to write about them, and Vladimir Kuzmin, in response, remarked that “the publishing house is monstrous, but everything is different. equally no. And if at the presentation itself this friendly skirmish caused laughter, then leafing through the monograph, you quickly realize that the parties must have had every reason to get tired of each other, for there is a truly titanic work behind the book. Unlike most other heroes of Tatlin's monographs, architecture itself occupies only one fifth of Savinkin and Kuzmin's portfolio, while everything else is interiors, expositions of all kinds of exhibitions, object design and concepts, and it is so difficult to submit them in print. And Savinkin and Kuzmin would not be themselves if they turned the monograph into a banal volumetric booklet with multi-colored pictures. The genre of comics is much closer to them. And, it is true, every turn here is a fascinating story about the search for this or that image, turning the usual concepts inside out and just the benefits of courage, without which the real POLE design is inconceivable.