VLADIMIR OPARA
moscow city government
moscow city department of culture
russian academy of arts
moscow museum of modern art
16.01 —
26.02.2017
VLADIMIR OPARA
i exist in a constantly changing landscape
“I exist in a constantly changing landscape. I record the transition and the transformation of the landscape, changes that are taking place now or happened a second, minute, hour, or many years ago. Registered alterations layer on top of each other, fusing in various time-defying sequences and combinations, forming and altering my mental landscape. As I see it, the concept of the landscape includes not only the topography of an area but also events and people that become part of it, by means of blending with, being dissolved in or forming it. It is in the interaction with the surroundings that my mental landscape is formed, being constantly in transition and not bound by temporal or spatial restrictions.”
Vladimir Opara
The project was curated up until February 2016
by Andrei Tolstoy (1956 – 2016),
Doctor of Art, member of the Russian Academy of Arts.
Curator (from April 2016)
Vitaly Patsyukov
Assistant Curator
Yulia Matveeva
Album and Computer Graphic of the Project
Maya Opara
Project Coordination
Anya Sintsova
Exhibition Keeper
Sergey Smirnov
Graphic Design
Roman Gornitsky
Public Relations Department
Veronikа Kandaurova, Vadim Vlasenko
Translation
Anastasia Opara, Tatiana Ilyina
The Moscow Museum of Modern Art presents the exhibition project by Vladimir Opara «I exist in a constantly changing landscape». For the first time, the exhibition will join the artist’s projects that were previously shown in Germany, the Netherlands, Latvia, and Russia. The show includes video installations and series of multi-media works: emphatic powerful paintings with collage elements from the early 1990s, important large-scale multi-media installations such as «Avatars` Songs», «Deportation», «Skyline», objects and assemblages from the 2000s.
Encompassing artworks that are inspired by different events in the artist’s life the exhibition presents a continuous, partially auto-biographical, story. The exhibition design allows viewers to immerse themselves in a unique space which brings together various techniques and art forms such as painting, video, installation, text, and computer generated imagery. Offering a multifaceted perspective on eternal and current problems of humanity, referring to humanitarian and civilizational themes, the artist portrays a continuously changing natural, cultural and historical landscape of human life.
The exhibition in MMOMA is built around «Black Book. The Ark of Vladimir Opara», which was created especially for the occasion. The book as well as the exhibition has a multilayered structure and serves as a metaphor for the ark, which contains all that deserves to be salvaged and preserved, represents the history of humanity and invokes core human values.
In his complex works the artist makes use of documentary photographs from the 1930s, a video recorded by a camera placed on the dashboard of a moving car, video fragments produced in Germany, the Czech Republic, France, Latvia, Poland, the Netherlands, and Russia, data from various social media resources to convey his firsthand experience, create stories about continuous change, the creation and deconstruction of the human environment.
The exhibition «I exist in a constantly changing landscape» continues the series of Vladimir Opara’s art projects: «Iron Road» (1991, Moscow), «Claustrophobia» (1993-94, Moscow), "Bible Story: Boats and Trains«(2009, Riga, Latvia ), «Deportation» (2010, Dresden, Germany), «E-crucifix» (2012, Moscow), and the exhibition «Motion Landscape», which was presented in the autumn of 2016 in Pulchri Studio (Den Haag, the Netherlands).
The exhibition will be accompanied by lectures and exhibition tours conducted by the artist. Along with paintings, multimedia installations, texts and other exhibits they will offer another way of approaching Vladimir Opara’s work. The upcoming meetings will allow the viewer to get acquainted with the artist’s perception of the world. Lectures and screenings will shed light on the development of art practices in Russia from the early 1990s to the present day. Exhibition tours with the artist will take place every Thursday from 19:30 to 21:00. Additionally, as part of the MMOMA lecture program Vladimir Opara will conduct lectures every Wednesday from 19:30 to 21:00 and Sunday from 15:00 to 17:00 in the lecture hall of MMOMA (Tverskoy Boulevard 9).
Vladimir Opara (b. 1952) is a member of the Moscow Union of Artists, and the Association of Dutch artists PULCHRI STUDIO. Vladimir Opara participated in more than 120 group exhibitions in Russia, the USA, Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, and Norway and held 30 solo exhibitions in the USA, the Netherlands, Latvia, and Russia. His works are included in museum collections in Russia and abroad such as the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, the National Center for Contemporary Arts, the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Russian Museum, the Latvian National Museum of Art, Riga, amongst others.
Vitaly Patsukov is an art historian, curator, and contemporary art theorist. Vitaly Patsukov is the Head of the Department of Experimental Programs in the National Centre for Contemporary Arts. The scope of his research interests included visual arts and relationship between visual arts and other art forms.
Official websites of the project: www.opara.pro, www.opara.ru
Paint for the MMOMA exhibition is provided by Manders.
The museum and the author express their gratitude to
Natasha Agafonova, Olga Adrova, Aziz Azizov, Olga Blinova, Sofia Bulyuk, German Vinogradov, Alexander Volkov, Klara Golitsyna, Dmitry Grazhevich, Janna Dobelt, Igor Dudinskiy, Slava Zuev, Konstantin Kedrov, Tatiana Kokorina, Vitali Kopachev, Sonia Levitskaya, Lia Krukovа, Marina Leizgold, Slava Len, Andrey Melnikov, Vadim Mesyats, Yury Omelchenko, Marina Onischik, Anna Petrova, Lusine Petrosyan, Artem Rodionov, Evelin Richter, Anastasia Ryabkova, Alexey Savinov, Kirill Svetlyakov, Irina Siletskaya, Mari Sokol, Alexey Tabachnik, Alexandra Chapkina, Egor Chinilin, Kirill Tsvetkov, Irina Caesar for participation in the projects “Avatars” and “Avatars’ Songs”,
to students of the art studio ARTFOR for creating paper objects for the installation “08:15”,
and to Alexey Opara for the performance “Russian Hospitality” during the opening.
9, Tverskoy boulevard, Moscow
+7 495 690-68-70
www.mmoma.ru
TV Culture news
Exhibition of Vladimir Opara opened in the Moscow Museum of modern art.
http://tvkultura.ru/article/show/article_id/164325/
News of Culture with Vladislav Flyarkovsky from 01/21/2017 (5:00 pm)
http://tvkultura.ru/video/show/brand_id/59983/episode_id/1461918/video_id/1575988/
«Я существую в постоянно изменяющемся ландшафте» – именно это высказывание Владимира Опара дало названием выставке художника в Московском музее современного искусства. Истории о постоянном изменении, построении и разрушении окружающей среды художник рассказывает, трансформируя свой ландшафт с помощью самых разных медиасредств. Репортаж Станислава Дорэ.
На выставке представлены работы Владимира Опара, созданные им с начала 90-х и до наших дней. Экспозиция готовилась несколько лет – сроки её проведения постоянно переносились, что самому художнику оказалось только на руку. Выставка обрастала концепциями и подтекстами, но главное, автору удалось найти то, что объединяет все его работы — это тревога за будущее человечества.
«Мир находится в странном состоянии, в каком-то раздумии – воевать или не воевать, бомбить или использовать ядерное оружие, и это безумие. Как спасти мир, реально это, а может и нет», – говорит художник.
Тема возможной катастрофы, метафорического всемирного потопа пронизывает всю выставку. Специально для неё художник хотел построить ковчег, но потом от этой идеи отказался, решив, что с его ролью отлично справится само музейное пространство. А то, что, по мнению автора, стоило бы спасти в случае нового потопа, он занёс в специально созданную «Чёрную книгу» – и здесь не «каждой твари по паре», а интеллектуальные и творческие достижения человечества.
«Чёрный цвет – это некое ощущение пространства, бездонного, бесконечного. Чёрный – не трагичный, это скорее суперпространство, в которое я помещаю свои размышления», – поясняет Владимир Опара.
Выставка занимает два этажа музея и представляет работы, выполненные в разных техниках. Это видеоарт, живопись, инсталляции на волнующие автора темы. Например, одна из работ посвящена жертвам депортаций, другая – атомным бомбардировкам Хиросимы и Нагасаки. Понять богатый и сложный внутренний мир художника, его творчество – не так просто, а потому в музее каждую неделю будут специальные лекции и экскурсии, которые проведёт сам Владимир Опара.
The album in pdf format can be read or downloaded
http://www.opara.ru/1OparaAlbum.pdf