Today’s story is about Igor and his art swim. His creative skills appeared long before quarantine. Igor has an unusual hobby: he takes photographs of himself in galleries against the background of modern art, and these are not just selfies, but a performance related to sports.
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On March 24, 2018, an exhibition of Ukrainian artist Aliosha opened in Futuro art gallery. This Aliosha (Alexey Potupin) lives in Dusseldorf and creates spatial installations. The exhibition in Nizhny Novgorod left an ambiguous impression. On the one hand, people happily photographed next to pink cellophane, and on the other hand, they also photographed next to pink cellophane. Associations with the sea running high were obvious, and I got an idea to make not a trivial selfie, but to set up something more provocative.
No sooner said than done. I will respond their Ukrainian-German installation with my Nizhny Novgorod happening! I invited a photographer, Georgy Akhadov, and prepared decorations: flippers, mask and snorkel for swimming. The only thing left was to come to the gallery, undress, have a photo shoot in swimming trunks and not to be arrested by the police. I took advantage of knowing the gallery director and told her that we would conduct a regular photo shoot for some kind of slick magazine. I understood that we would have very little time for shooting, and most importantly, it would be impossible to predict the reaction of visitors to the gallery, because we could not close the gallery completely.
But everything went well. Futuro Gallery exhibits ultramodern art, therefore it is not «equipped» with the traditional museum workers. We explained to those few frightened visitors that we were shooting Speedo advertising. Then my friend designer Sergey Sokolov took up the matter, and here is the result. Here’s what life-giving Adobe Photoshop can do! Sergey did everything so professionally that no one would believe that I actually was shot in the gallery in swimming trunks and flippers. Therefore, here is my backstage photo for you
Special thanks to Futuro gallery for this opportunity. This cultural institution gives an opportunity to touch the beauty and to exercise in baroque interiors. I already rode a bike among Asya Feoktistova’s paintings, swam in Aliosha installations. Now I just have to put a treadmill and make my first art hat-trick.
