Close neighborhood. Loft+Loft

The project “Close Neighborhood” consists of two simultaneous exhibitions of Stanislav Azarov’s graphics in two separated locations. In fact, this is one exhibition. Its two parts are several thousand kilometers apart from each other, but they are completely synchronized – both in time and in the exposition content.

The graphic series “City of Elephants” and “City of Angels” presented to the public in Finland are only one stage in the complex process of depicting plots and images from a strange and grotesque world, which first appeared in the works of Stanislav Azarov back in the mid-90s of the XX century and continues to this day. Some sketch drawings of this world in his (constantly filled) albums become printed graphics, some – paintings, some – disappear. A number of visual elements and plots of his works continuously mutate with unpredictable visual results.

Therefore, we are going to show the public in Volgograd other stages of this process – the works of Stanislav, whose mutations led to the emergence of graphic series exhibited in Helsinki, as well as the latest works in which an attentive viewer will immediately see the living DNA from the series “City of Elephants” and “City of Angels”.

For some of the works presented in both locations, we have prepared an augmented reality (AR) layer, so that these works can be seen in their genetic development. One of the works is divided into two parts and comes together only in the virtual space of augmented reality. The opening and closing of both exhibitions takes place synchronously with the mutual inclusion of telepresence for organizers and visitors.

Both exhibition spaces are gentrified warehouses of the late XIX century, turned into loft-style creative spaces. They are created from the same building materials and are alike in some elements to the extent that creates the effect of a single space necessary for our project.

We are very grateful to the Suomi-Venäjä-Seura and Merja Jokela personally, as well as Denis and Yulia Shilikhin for their help in implementing this difficult project.

All this is about close neighborhood, proximity.  About the extreme closeness of our reality and that shown in the works of Stanislav Azarov. And about human closeness in this world.