Svetlana Sukhova, Evgenia Zinovyeva,
Philipp Lychagin (Chelyabinsk)
BOOKREATION
Artist's book
February 18 - March 2, 2013

About the exhibition

There are universal things in culture without which our life is impossible. Book is one of them. It is natural that today's discussions on a question about the future of book in our high technological world are topical as never before. Key words here are "the book will be".

Book for its history have found a lot of forms: from tables on stone, and clay plates to codex on paper, and today - an electronic book. In contemporary art book keeps all its forms presented in various embodiments: from the artist's book ("livre d'artiste") to installations of books (book art).

One of the confirmations for axiological universe of book for young generation is the appeal of Chelyabinsk designers Svetlana Sukhova, Evgenia Zinovyeva and Philipp Lychagin to the artist's book. According to the literary and esthetic tastes each of these authors chose the text and the form of its embodiment. Various in stylistics and artistic techniques codex-books are interconnected by the same artistic task set by the authors which is to create an integral organism from a cover to the last page.

Svetlana Sukhova chose "Peter Pan" by James Barrie translated from the English by N. Demurova. This artist's book is entirely drawn by hand. According to the author's plan the font became a part of an image of the book and conveys meaning of the words through itself. Complexity of some font elements emphasizes character of narration and is organically entwined with the drawing.

Evgenia Zinovyeva's book is a handmade one too. The fairy tale "Egle, queen of snakes" by Saloméja Néris is a book-object. If you tip up illustrated pages with text on the circle of opened book cover then they will become transparent like theatrical curtains. Thumbing through the pages, we can watch the plot unraveling.

Philipp Lychagin recreates mystical and fantastic stories by Ray Bradbury via computer collages using photos and graphic editors, and also combining different fonts, variants of their outlines and sizes on one page. An interactive mediabook became an integral part of three collected stories in a one case.

Each of the young authors found his own figurative and plastic language, and the form corresponding to it to catch the spirit and transfer the idea of their favourite pieces.

Svetlana Shlyapnikova