The presentation of the two works of Eduard Anikonov, (The two who left the time behind", that took place December 18th, 2007 turned out one of the most significant artistic events of the past year.
Anikonov's creativity is advancing into the reign of
the burning problems of modern art. The authors may look impudent
by presenting to the public the "raw", "not proved by the shelf
life" ( the retrospective is not his strong point), just from
under the artist's brush canvases, thus marking his position in
the present time.
The preamble of the show is a
dark room with two spot-lighted paintings covered by white cloth
with female figures slightly appearing through it, a dark passage
leading to the paintings and lined with black tree branches with
dangling bright-white carnations in medicine test tubes, and two
slim girls holding big clock dials, clad in black and white
looking as if they have just stepped out from the paintings.
The ballerinas start moving, the black and the white colors
begin to whirl making white turn black and vice versa. In the
dark hall that was first taken as something eternal,
the present starts pulsing with the sound of the second
hand of the clock. The contrast between the dark and the
light, the eternity and the present comes to the climax when
the veil slides down from the paintings.
The painted clock hands turn out to make the "border line"
between the dark and the light, the hidden and the enlightenment.
The dialectics of eternity thus makes the theme of the diptych
"The two who left the time behind".
Anikonov's pictures
seem to be balancing upon the freakish side of symbolism and
experiment, the expressed materiality and the ephemeral moments
of life. The multi-layered, multi-factured expressiveness, the
silent harmony creates an impression of the movement, the
imperceptible movement of the second hand of the clock or
the inaudible flow of the sand in the sand-glass.
The reflections of the time transformations
still kept the audience. And the refraining line "the quality
of the time is what matters" made every viewer reflect - every
official, businessman and professional.
Elena Rossyp
