The main feature of the exhibition is a digital presentation in the media hall, a live panorama projected to the music both on the walls around and on the floor underfoot. On the floor is a map for each of the four authors of their city: Berlin, Moscow, Rome and New York. As it moves, looking under your feet you may experience mild vertigo. Many times enlarged drawings of cities grow on the walls, they are shown by a brush, they arise from colorful streaks that drip into blackness, like paint into water or onto a wet leaf; it starts to rain at times. An undoubted hit is the movement from bottom to top in Sergei Tchoban's panorama "A City Like Berlin": its animation is based on the movement of plans and creates a completely authentic feeling that we are riding an elevator over a painted city.
The panorama, I must say, has become a "nail" and in the exposition of originals, which it holds on itself - it cannot be overlooked. This is the largest and most effective graphics in all four halls, it is a pity that it is not the original, but a “print on watercolor paper”, but the original is large and could not fit into the hall.
The drawing summarizes the themes of most of the works of Sergei Tchoban shown at the exhibition: a study of possible changes in the environment of a historical city with the invasion of modern architecture, mainly glass towers, tilting their heads like periscopes scanning the surroundings, and transparent overhead passages with people wandering on glass over the city at high altitude. Fantasies of glass intrusions arise either as variants of city landscapes-assumptions, then in a more complex way - for example, on a billboard drawn into the street - which, however, looks even more authentic than imaginary landscapes (see Chaussenstrasse with architectural fantasy on a billboard. 2019). Among the drawings by Sergei Tchoban, often with pastels and charcoal, there are, however, genre street sketches, and other places, not only Berlin and not even always architecture - but, for example, a drawing of the eastern market. But “Sergei Tchoban has a very integral concept of the exhibition,” explains curator Yekaterina Shalina. "In other cities, views are presented that are somewhat reminiscent of the architect of Berlin, and which places are indicated in the tags placed in the captions to the figures." And yet this part is the most architectural one, and because it speaks out about the problems and is actively interested in modern buildings and their form.
Three other authors are watercolors. Alvaro Castagnet is recommended as "one of the most respected watercolor painters in the world" - and his works, which meet us at the entrance, really mesmerize with the flight of the brush and the boldness of color and graphic spots that outline the emotional properties of landscapes, but not devoid of precision.
Such a watercolor, while formally remaining a graphic, of course, is close to painting, somehow you cannot say about it: I painted. Several years ago, Sergei Kuznetsov switched to a similar technique. The Zaryadye Concert Hall, with its gratings, shadows and highlights, perfectly fits live, moving strokes, and it is shown here both in the process of construction and after, so that it turns out Zaryadye in Zaryadye.
The fourth author - Thomas Wells Schaller, a former architect from Los Angeles, showed mainly Rome - where "his architectural style crystallized", albeit with a touch of Moscow. He adheres to a stricter, even harsh watercolor, does not flirt with whitewash and enthusiastically spreads strictly outlined lights and shadows on the sheet.
All works are fresh, a lot of 2019, although there are also 2018, many were created specifically for the exhibition - in particular, a series of fantasies by Sergei Tchoban on the theme of the future of Berlin, a city that, as you know, is being intensively built up with modern architecture, including in the historical environment. … The exposition of originals is quite large, beautiful and comfortable (designers Planet 9) - in principle, according to the logic of things, it is the main one.
But the most powerful attractor, of course, is the panorama video created by the team
Artplay Media, by the authors of animated films by Van Gogh, Klimt and Michelangelo, is a graphic film, pretty much “soaked” by the predominance of watercolors.
It must be admitted that it is beautiful, although watercolor, unlike a drawing, does not lend itself well to animation, hence the constant streaks and blots. In addition, even for those who are not familiar with examples of exhibition projects, it is obvious, and, say, from cinematic screensavers, that graphics animation could be more complex, time-consuming and impressive. Here, in addition to the traveling panorama of fantasy Berlin, people move a couple of times, once, it seems, cars, birds - and, perhaps, everything else, brush and blots. But being in a room with animation is curious, and besides, this is the first experience of this kind of animation of architectural graphics and painting, shown in Moscow by Moscow authors. Perhaps the certain accuracy, delicacy in the approach to the material, the moderation of the effects is caused precisely by this. We wish good luck to curator Ekaterina Shalina, who consistently shows us architectural graphics (the exhibition of the Archgraphics competition is open in
Maly Vlasyevsky, 5c2) maybe in the future we will witness animated reconstructions of the city or, conversely, an impressive display of hyper-projects - in this kind of hall it would be easier to assess the scope of any project, of which we have a lot now.
