The Power of Water

East Meets West Gallery

The Power of Water

The State Duma Committee of the Russian Federation for Natural Resources,
the Environment and Ecology
The Russian Federal Agency for Water Resources
The Moscow City Commission on Environmental Policy
The Moscow City Department of Resource Management
and Environmental Protection
MGUP “Mosvodokanal”
East Meets West Gallery

East Meets West Gallery curator Tatiana Paleeva is proud to present the Second International Ecological Art Exhibition, entitled “The Power of Water”.

The exhibit’s opening date of March 22 is not accidental, as the United Nations General Assembly has designated March 22 as World Water Day; this year is dedicated to water and food security.

Problems of environmental security and survival in a large city concern all of its inhabitants, and are core values in our family and working life. Water is an essential component of that surrounding world, and it is crucial to draw everyone’s attention – and particularly the attention of our children – to the conservation and rational use of water resources, water quality improvements and above all the quality of our drinking water.

For the first time, under the aegis of an artistic project, the leaders of the agencies that shape and implement water policies in both Moscow and the country as a whole will share their thoughts with the public.

“East Meets West Gallery” continues the tradition of interactive communication with the children audience during the exhibitions: master-classes on painting and playing lessons covering the theme “Water and Environment” will be held at the weekends in Halls 1 and 2.

“The Power of Water” refers to different aspects of the relationship between culture, education and everyday life. Twelve artists from Russia, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, the United States and Japan offer their artistic interpretation of these all-important themes: water and life, water and man, water and the arts.

Tatiana Badanina (Russia) Image-sign-symbol is a critical component of the artistic language of the author, in which she speaks with the Viewer. Tatiana’s diptych is entitled “Creation. Day Four” and it symbolically depicts the fourth day of Creation of the World: the sky, the earth, water and lights: the Sun and Moon and the stars.

Patrizia Bonanzinga (Italy) first took an interest in photography during her university years, where she studied mathematics. She subsequently lived in Mexico, Algeria, the United States, France and China. In Beijing, where she spent four years (1995-1998), she seriously took up the genre, devoting several of her projects to China. Her photographs are included in the collections of the National Gallery of Modern Art, the MAXXI National Museum of Arts of XXI century of Rome, the House of Photography of Moscow, the Training and Documentation Centre Ricardo Rangel of Maputo, Mozambique, and also in various private collections.

Aleksei Lantsev (Russia) has worked with “East Meets West Gallery” for the past 12 years, and for all that time he has painted only with watercolors. Aleksei’s new triptych turns water from a simple material into his partner and accomplice. It consists of the canvases “Horizon”, “Reflections” and “Boat”, specifically made for “The Power of Water” project based on impressions of the Taman peninsula. The forth canvas “Well” stands alone; it is a metaphysical still Life where objects are identified with topographical signs. According to the Aleksei, water has helped him connect free painting and graphic abstraction.

Naomi Maki of Japan is a live musician, singer, and composer. In addition to music career, she has a long passion for abstract painting. In 1999 she had both the Art exhibition and the concert in London, the same in Tokyo in 2003, the same in Moscow in 2010.
Naomi lives in Moscow since January, 2009. The unique opportunity to work in different genres of Arts allowed her to create a specific series of artistic canvases that you can not only see, but also listen to each picture through the lyrics composed by Naomi Maki.

Michel Marang (The Netherlands) – is a creative director, composer and photographer who had mastered various Art genres and professions. He has given many recitals in Europe and America. At the opening party of “The Power of Water” art-project he will perform on clarinet several contemporary musical pieces that will accompany a series of his B&W series of photos entitled “Water and Man”. Two of his video installation “Dirty window” and a chamber sound video “Garden of love” will also be on display in different Halls.
Drops of water and mud reflected in the windows change the picture of the world, especially when the light falls not on the window itself, but at the background area. The drops create a whimsical, different picture of the world. As often happens in everyday life: the picture is distorted when all attention is directed to the perception of the visible objects in the foreground, rather than the details – in the background.

Hans Mendler (Germany) regularly exhibits with “East Meets West Gallery” recently, since 2010. He took part in our first environmental art-project project “Organica” as a painter, and as a sculptor. Within a short time he became a well-known artist among the Moscow public.
During the summer of 2011, in Hungary he created particularly for “The Power of Water” art-project a special triptych “Gilgamesh and the deluge” dedicated to the ancient Babylonian epic. “Long time before the Biblical legend Of Noah was another similar Babylonian epic about Gilgamesh, half god and half human. Based on his own experience he had to found out that Nature, and the Water, is many times more powerful than him, even with all his magical abilities. Nowadays we treat Nature and Water as if we are stronger than them. However, this is not true! Humanity must treat the Water with respect as one of the most powerful phenomena that ever existed”.

Vladimir Nasedkin (Russia) is new to “The East Meets West Gallery” art-projects. The story of his interest in the Water theme goes back to 1999 to his installation “the Architecture of Water, Metal and Stones”. This first installation was performed directly in the River Chusovaya in the Urals in the Region of Sverdlovsk. Today, the artist makes the video installation together with a composition of 15 transparent acrylic objects of various configurations with a height of 70 cm, accompanied by 7 color photographs of the architectural compositions built from metal objects in 1999.

Alexander Oligerov (Russia) is a regular partner of the “East Meets West Gallery”. We first presented him to the Moscow audience during the environmental exhibit “Organica” in 2010. Alexander is the winner of several recent art competitions, including “Made in Russia” in 2011 in Milan and “Art Preview 2012” of the Russian Academy of Arts, and at the beginning of 2012 he had a personal exhibition at the Museum of Non-Conformist Art in St. Petersburg.
His triptych “Water Black and White” is allegoric dichotomy of good and evil. “White water fills us with hope and energy that gives us a chance to start with a white sheet; black water is a substance that can wash away all borders, all systems and conventions”.

Liliana Spiktorenko (Russia) will present several works, among them “Before and after”, which reflects the aesthetic approaches bordering on symbolism and codification of images in her latest works. Liliana’s philosophical manner of dealing with the topic “Water and Life” best reveals the complex and deep spirit of the artist herself. The pathos of her work consists of the fact that, although born from water and sustained by water, man can destroy himself, after which “instead of the huge variety of life there will only remain a blue abyss, pure and ready again to nurture life over millions of years…”.

Alena Telpukhovskaya (Russia) – a fine and sincere photographer. Her journey to Lake Baikal in 2010 awoke the bottomless depths of her pure female soul. Smooth and crystal-clean surface of the Baikal Lake and the image of a female soul – a girl walking upon the water, symbolize the emotional link between Human soul and Water. By changing the state of Water or Nature the artist shows the change in her own mood. For that she uses the unusual technique of blending the transparent images at different angles, which creates a deep, philosophical and contemplative impression.

Mel Theobald is from Chicago and came to Russia for the first time in 1990, when he was a well-known artist. Today, he is as well an acknowledged master of Art photography. Many of his photos were shot in Russia for his project “Luminous Russia”. And since that time the theme of water became very important in his art.
“Water is a metaphor of time and space. In its abstraction it is without shape, value, texture, color or form. It is precisely that characteristic that makes it a visual magnet. It is the texture of the wind, the color of reflection and the shape of geography. It is the thickness of paper on the vast surface of the earth. And, in its transparency, it is a transcendental Universe” (Mel Theobald).

Gennady Troshkov (Russia) is a complex and multilayered artist. His works “…are like a dream. Their cultural tradition dates back to the early avant-garde, to the abstract compositions of Fernand Leger and futuristic elements of Kazimir Malevich, where cylindrical forms gave rise to a new way of looking at the world, a kind of technological utopia…” (V. Pacukov).
Here we present the latest work by Gennady Troshkov, a diptych “Traces of the Tsunami” created especially for “The Power of Water”. Stormy and frothy water bears the wreckage of the material world, which floats up and then disappears in the white foam. But the wreckage doesn’t contain familiar signs, details or components. This stream is not real; it sounds like modernist music, like a rising wave full of syncopation and dissonance.

We are pleased to invite you to “The Power of Water”
at the Polytechnical Museum, Halls 1, 2 and 3
from 23 March to May 10, 2012.
The Museum is open Tuesday through Sunday
from 10:00 up to 18:00.
(Closed Monday)

The address:
Novaya square 3/4,
Entrance 1, Halls 1, 2, 3
www.polymus.ru
+7 (495) 625 06 14

EAST MEETS WEST GALLERY
Director Tatyana Paleeva
Phone: +7-916-680 90 53
E-mail: paleeva@emwgallery.com

www.eastmeetswestgallery.com