NEWS BULLETIN – MOLODKIN CATALOGUE

The catalogue for Absolute Return: Drawings exhibition at Saint-Etienne Museum of Modern Art approaches Molodkin’s ideas as a developing system. For the first time in his artistic career, the publication has treated each project from beginning to end as a gesamtkunstwerk, revealing the artist-engineer as the creator of ‘the Soviet Utopia, belatedly realized.’

Returning to the fundamentals of Molodkin as an artist-engineer, Absolute Return: Drawings visualises the stages of production, from the mathematical drawings created in the artist’s studio through to the factory made object. Previously unseen drawings provide a rare insight into the processes behind his monumental work and are further complimented by critical examinations and conversations with the artist.

Museum Director Lóránd Hegyi explores the generational distinctions between post-Soviet artists. In his text THE SHOCK OF THE REAL Andrei Molodkin’s New Agit-Prop Hegyi classifies Molodkin as the ‘third generation’, due to an inherent desire to present the abject brutality of the neo-Capitalist society through his work. In the interview Holy Oil, New York and Paris based critics and curators Margarita Tupitsyn and Victor Tupitsyn discuss with Molodkin the political implications of his acrylic sculptures and the physical installations of his exhibitions. The conversation continues in The Genealogy of Failure where Margarita Tupitsyn and Victor Tupitsyn question Molodkin on the Utopian element manifested in the assemblage of his constructions.  In 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 – 0 – 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 – Transformer No. V579 : The Constructive Quality of Reductive Form Becky Haghpanah-Shirwan considers Molodkin’s relationship to the Russian Constructivists and American Minimalists, discussing the experiential implications of a reductive form. Jean-Pierre Frimbois concludes with the text Signs & Images; a systematic, project based exploration of Molodkin’s biro canvases and sketches.

The publication thus provides a fresh insight into the mind of the ex-Soviet solider by illustrating the cyclical journey of each individual project and encouraging a deeper understanding of this ritualised process.

Price at Art Sensus: £25

Title: Andrei Molodkn. Absolute Return: Drawings / Editor: L. Hegyi / Text: Jean-Pierre Frimbois, Becky Haghpanah-Shirwan, Lóránd Hegyi, Margarita Tupitsyn and Victor Tupitsyn / Publisher: Silvana, 2011 / Pages: 232

 

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