The exhibition is on the third floor, in a small hall, but it is four times larger than the workshop of the master of kinetic objects Vyacheslav Koleichuk was. As a matter of fact, the workshop, as Koleichuk's daughter Anna said at the opening, died a year ago - it was flooded with hot water, "… but then friends came running, everyone came and saved everyone." A little later, in April of this year, Vyacheslav Koleichuk died without finishing work on a repetition of his 1967 Atom object in front of the Garage building in Gorky Park. Anna finished the work, she, together with the curators, organized this exhibition.
The exhibition is called “Workshop of Vyacheslav Koleichuk” and is included in the program “Creative workshops” of the NCCA. The genre itself is an exhibition-workshop, it has a powerful memorial charge, it is not surprising that his study, filled with all sorts of things, became a kind of monument to David Sargsyan at the Museum of Architecture. A workshop, like any room of a departed person, becomes a monument, it happens that they are not dismantled, but this, it seems, goes back to ancient burials, and not only Egyptian ones, but to the human desire to put everything that is needed in the next world in a coffin. At the opening, the atmosphere of the commemoration was felt, firstly, it was visible, and many times it was said and repeated that friends had gathered, to remember, and the cans of dried and sweets on the table from the workshop - they are in some photographs - are more than similar for a memorial treat. Secondly, the objects were deliberately collected, mostly sounding, with hammers, and a couple of children, and all the other visitors, kept ringing in the hall almost all the time, as if they were calling the owner of the workshop; voices are heard from the speakers. Maybe the voices are superfluous, but everything turned out quite shrilly.
A real retrospective, according to Anna Koleichuk, is planned for 2021, for the 80th anniversary of the artist, architect, scientist - it's hard to figure out what to call the author of kinetic objects. Before that, several more exhibitions and an analysis of the archive were conceived, so that in the end we got a real monograph. The idea is captivating, it looks consistent.
Now, however, a lot of work has also been done: from 14 screens, most of which are plasma, and two are conservative old TVs, interviews with memories are broadcast. Things from the workshop are neatly distributed in space, in places forming inaccessible corners, for example, with self-portraits, where Koleichuk looks like Gogol or Gorky. Something is suspended from the ceiling, so you have to lift your head, as it happens in a workshop, crammed from top to bottom. Something is at eye level and you can touch with your hands those self-tensioned structures about which a person not involved first of all seeks to understand why they are kinetic, if they do not move.
The standing thread and the Mobius triangle - the most paradoxical inventions and, probably, key things for the future monograph - are almost imperceptible. The main attention, following the theme of the exhibition, goes to the objects that traditionally attract the attention of the workshop guest: thus spinning and ringing. Unconditional hit - Ovaloid of two giant duralumin "combs" with groups of variegated teeth: it can emit a cosmic, kind of faceted sound, if approached correctly with a hammer, or it can crack at all, it seems, frets.
Self-stressed structures, larger and smaller, are complemented by another series of things that are also attractive to the eye - optical illusions, and above all stereography, which, as an art form, was invented by Vyacheslav Koleichuk. It is somewhat similar to the popular fractals now, but the pattern of repeating shapes is applied by rotation to a polished metal surface, after which the incident light at some point makes a seemingly chaotic flickering into something similar - for example, a glass, like in a joint installation by Vyacheslav and Anna Koleichuk, or simply with beautiful ornamental regularity. It is essential that light is indicated in the explication as an instrument, instead of the notorious “canvas, oil” - steel, engraving, light. But no less important is the viewer who strives to stand at the right angle and see the figure - in this sense of complicity, Koleichuk's art is very modern.
A plywood ovaloid turned inside out under the ceiling and its neighbor, an anti-apple made of red strips of cardboard, convince what is written next to the ad on the wall: Koleichuk worked with the physics of phenomena, and there are patented inventions, but more with shaping - a subject popular in seventies, elusive, but extremely significant, especially in the context of art that seeks a new form. In these things there is much of what modern architects strive for at the forefront of progress, at least parametrics.
The curator Natalia Goncharova and the author of the exhibition, Anna Koleichuk, interpret it as an installation in which they wanted to capture "the energy, the spirit of the workshop." For the moment when the monographic exhibition has not yet been compiled, the genre has been chosen precisely - it allows you to bring to the fore what you just want to show, and at the same time makes the exposition emotional, and the viewer involved. A trip to the studio is always very interesting, it allows you to get into an atypical space created by the author in the process of work and participating in it, to find yourself, to some extent, not just inside the picture, but inside at the moment of its formation. It is not surprising that the NCCA has launched such a cycle. And at the same time - in any case, it feels like the workshop now in the installation-exhibition seems, on the one hand, alive and sounding, and on the other - dispersed, scattered and frozen in space before transformation, as in the paintings of the surrealists and as is customary now in science fiction cinema. Maybe this is because the small room is larger than the workshop, but it seems that the effect is intentional, and perhaps it is correct. The workshop froze before turning into a series of exhibitions, and probably into a book; we are still allowed to examine it from the inside and touch it, ring it.
