.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
The present work, which has also been called Abandoned Church is discussed in John Bowlt's introductory essay to Dmitri Plavinsky, The Voice of Silence:
'The essence of Plavinsky's art lies in the abrasive confrontation between two levels of perception--that of the natural time of pre-history and that of the false time of history--a confrontation that the artist expresses in his synthetic appreciation of the pagan swastika and the Christian cross, 'the idea of movement stopped and the beginning of the new,' as he affirms in his Notebooks of 1994. Some of Plavinsky's most powerful compositions, such as the 'Viking Ship' (1976) and the 'Abandoned Church' (1975), therefore register the pathetic traces of our brittle material culture within the shifting sand of eternity. These stark exercises in black and white remind us that all is ephemeral, that all will be engulfed in the primeval dust of time, and that, as in the forest at night, we will always go forward only to come back to our point of departure.'(ed. J. Bowlt, Dmitri Plavinsky, New York, 2000, p. 7).
For illustrations of different editions of this work see:
Norton Dodge and Alison Hilton, New Art from the Soviet Union: The Known and The Unknown, Washington, 1977, p. 105.
A. Rosenfeld, N. Dodge ed. From Gulag To Glasnost: Nonconformist Art From The Soviet Union, New York, 1995, p. 59.
ed. J. Bowlt, Dmitri Plavinsky, New York, 2000, p. 206.
'The essence of Plavinsky's art lies in the abrasive confrontation between two levels of perception--that of the natural time of pre-history and that of the false time of history--a confrontation that the artist expresses in his synthetic appreciation of the pagan swastika and the Christian cross, 'the idea of movement stopped and the beginning of the new,' as he affirms in his Notebooks of 1994. Some of Plavinsky's most powerful compositions, such as the 'Viking Ship' (1976) and the 'Abandoned Church' (1975), therefore register the pathetic traces of our brittle material culture within the shifting sand of eternity. These stark exercises in black and white remind us that all is ephemeral, that all will be engulfed in the primeval dust of time, and that, as in the forest at night, we will always go forward only to come back to our point of departure.'(ed. J. Bowlt, Dmitri Plavinsky, New York, 2000, p. 7).
For illustrations of different editions of this work see:
Norton Dodge and Alison Hilton, New Art from the Soviet Union: The Known and The Unknown, Washington, 1977, p. 105.
A. Rosenfeld, N. Dodge ed. From Gulag To Glasnost: Nonconformist Art From The Soviet Union, New York, 1995, p. 59.
ed. J. Bowlt, Dmitri Plavinsky, New York, 2000, p. 206.