On December 15, 2015, a meeting will be held with Vladimir Borisovich in the Moika-8 lecture hall. On the eve of this event, we managed to communicate with him in the unique atmosphere of a creative workshop, the path to which turned out to be very symbolic. Understanding and cognition of the author's creative ideas was as deep as going through the front doors into the depths of the St. Petersburg courtyard, and the purity of the idea and form is like an illuminated clean workshop on a dark cloudy evening.
Vladimir Borisovich, what is art design for you, how do you see it?
Art design was born much earlier than me, and no one can say exactly how many millennia it is. There is such an expert on Egypt, Jorge Angel Livrago Rizzi, a leading specialist in the world. He said that structures such as large Egyptian pyramid are at least 17 thousand years old. We will consider that such a structure is the beginning of art design, because dozens of concepts are collected in one structure: scientific, technical, architectural, art, medicine, and space. The pyramid is both a receiver and a transmitter at the same time. I was always worried about this, and I decided to make a pyramid, which can only be called a pyramid by contours, but in fact it is more than a pyramidal shape, and there are no pharaohs inside. There is space and time. By the way, modern science explains the convergence of these two parameters, space and time, with just such a geometric formula: mutually perpendicular two cylindrical holes. That is, if you take a sheet and bend it along the radius, then this is only one hole, and then the formation of the second hole is time. Here is the convergence of these two holes - a very thin jumper. There is practically no matter between time and space. And light models the form so that it flows from one substance to another.Tell us about your "pyramid"?
In 2003, a competition was announced for a monument dedicated to the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg on Mytninskaya Embankment. I wanted to build a pyramid.
IN Ancient Egypt they said that everything is afraid of time, but time is afraid of the pyramids. Why is it afraid of the pyramidal shape? This is not just said 4 millennia ago. Because everything material in this world turns, sooner or later, into a pyramidal form - into a pile. And in view of the fact that the organization of any matter is directed to the four directions of space, everything absolutely turns into a pyramidal shape with time, and time cannot do anything about it. It builds the pyramid itself. These civilizations that existed before us knew this very well. Boris Demin, when he first saw the pyramid, said: "It feels like I've already seen it in some textbook." From the designer, everything should be similar to the final product. The real design is a work of art. At the end of the 20th century, many of the world's leading designers believed that the true product of design is a work of art. But there are apologists who believe that art is art and design is design. But the fact is that the function "beauty" is inherent in the same philosophical idea as the function "to be needed". A shovel has been needed for several millennia, but in the end a person learns to do without a shovel, and without beauty in any way. That is, the dominant function is still beauty. Beauty saves the world all the time. Although there are vandals who are constantly engaged in the destruction of beauty. But here is the single combat of God and the devil. The devil must destroy what is created by great labor. If not for God, then nothing would have been created by man.
Do the ideas of your work form immediately in your head or in the process of work?
No, in progress. Thinking and drawing is easy and simple. You just need to fall asleep and in order for an idea to appear in a dream, in the morning I can already draw it, as it was with the pyramid, by the way. But when I started to sculpt it, it is not clear how to build these walls without supports. And I need to mold them in order to cast a pyramid. I had to piss off. At first I made only windows in the pyramid, but without radii. And when I received this monolith in plaster with mutually perpendicular windows, then I began to refine the radii in plaster. And I got a model. I molded it again and cast it already in plaster, but with radii. Brought them very close to perfect condition. But when I cast in metal, I realized that I hadn't done anything yet. And for more than 2 years I brought the pyramid to an ideal state.Basically, my theory: there should be air everywhere in the sculpture, stop stealing it. With the help of traditional sculpture, the entire interior space is stolen by all the sculptors of the world. Stone is taken, bronze is taken, and space is squeezed. In all my works there is air. And as we erected figurative monuments, we continue to erect them.
There is such a deep philosophical meaning in your works.
Design without philosophy does not exist! Where design without philosophy is spoken of, it is arts and crafts. And design is necessarily a philosophy.Then we can ask you if there is a place for intuition in design?
Everything is based on intuition, but popularly called fantasy. Actually, it's intuition. The designer needs to see much further than everyone else around him. And in general, my definition of design is everything that humanity will need after some time. What is now - this is technocracy, engineering - this is already needed now. Do something with computers, with laptops and so on. This is now needed, this business requires from all specialists: give it right now - I will sell it. And the designer should look much further. And an art designer must also feel the beauty, about which so much has been said for thousands of years, it would seem that there is something to add. So it remains to pour over the doors and set them on fire, but this is not a way out. You have to look for beauty all the time.As for intuition: do you have a lot of it in your works?
And it's not for me to judge. I'm in a different area. How much, how little? The most important thing is that you feel it or not. If you feel it, determine how much of it - again, time is needed, how much of this intuition I have. Brodsky Joseph wrote in his Roman Elegies:I learned about my own - and about any - future from the letter, from the black paint.
So deep
In your work there are many works dedicated to Joseph Brodsky. Why are you returning to it?
I return to Pushkin.And the rose-maidens drink the breath, - Perhaps ... full of the Plague! (A. S. Pushkin "Feast during the plague")
These are seers. And one and the other. Only one - XIX, and the second - XX century.
Brodsky's daughter, when she saw the sculpture, asked: "Can I touch it?" I replied: "You can, if I can touch you." And I touched Brodsky's daughter. Brodsky's Severed Head. See the jagged edge? She is not cut off, but cut off from something big. Genius. The man who said: “In the era of friction, the speed of light is the speed of sight. Even if there is no light.
Another concept that no one knows. I would dream of putting a big head in Venice, and you can enter into Brodsky's head. And when you have grown up, you can no longer enter, you can’t even crawl in, and when you are small you can climb in. Then, when a person grows up, he says: "And I was with Brodsky as a child." And all letters, just like poetry, are written inside in a mirror. With Brodsky, the opposite is true.
How many portraits of him do you have?
I won't talk or you'll think I'm crazy.Did Brodsky greatly influence you and your work?
A lot of people influenced me: dad, mom, older brother.It is difficult to refrain from a question related to your family. Since you grew up in a creative environment, how has this affected your future? You had a choice: a creative profession or, for example, a mathematician, chemist, accountant?
Now I will tell you an episode from my life. I'm in the nursery art school. My teacher is a student of my father. And he says: “Vova, tomorrow we will not draw easily on a sheet of paper, but on a tablet. It is necessary to stretch the paper on the tablet. Tell your parents, they will teach you, and come to school with a tablet.” I come, I explain to my parents, they say: "Don't worry, we'll do everything." And they pull me a tablet. I have never seen what it is, but when the parents pulled the tablet, there were sails in the corners. I cried. My father said to my mother quietly, in a whisper, as I remember now: “That's it. With this, everything is clear! Then, when before the army I worked in an architectural workshop, an architect-trainee - this was my first entry in the work book, I had to put on at least 30 tablets for architects a day. I can already eyes closed stretch the tablet.Then you and your brother worked?
No, my brother never took me under his wing. He only watched from the side what I was doing. Then he began to say to his children: “Look at your uncle, everything is not the same with him as with me, and this also needs to be learned.”Why didn't you go into architecture?
And I went into architecture. I studied for a year at the Faculty of Architecture. I saw that there was only one Labuda and went to the army. After the army he entered the Kharkov Institute of Art and Industry, the same oldest as the Academy. A.L. Stieglitz.Why did you transfer to the Academy. A.L. Stieglitz?
I came to my friend's wedding after my second year and met my future wife. Her dad said to me: “How will you live in Kharkov, and she is here in Leningrad?” “Well, nothing, it will be transferred,” I said, “there are 47 universities in Kharkov.” And the wife said: “No, it’s better for you to transfer.”Do you regret this choice?
I'm sorry. The fly is weaker than the Kharkov Institute.Did you have a good impression of the Stieglitz Academy?
Well, of course they did. There is a part of my life, 4-5 course passed. Everyone went to look at my drawing. The head of the drawing department was then Vladimir Ivanovich Shistko, he offered to stay at the Mukhinsky School. I said "No. I am a designer". He said, “It's a pity. You have the best drawing in the course."What department did you graduate from?
Industrial Design. I worked as an industrial designer for 17 years after the Mukhinsky School. From young specialist to industry leading designer. The Minister handed me the MRP medal (Ministry of Radio Instrumentation). And then Gorbachev came and said that we do not need everything, such products as Leningrad, Galaxy, Amphiton, Blues and so on. I have a folder with purely designer things.What is the topic of your thesis?
A spaceship and there are astronauts inside. These cosmonauts must definitely engage in physical labor so that their muscles, ligaments, and bones do not atrophy. It was necessary to make a rehabilitation zone. Remember spaceship: a large cylinder, a cone and then a small cylinder. And in the conical part, I came up with the perimeter as a "squirrel wheel". It is worth attaching yourself to the base with rubber straps on this “squirrel wheel” and you can just run along the track. You can also lay out the Swedish wall, the “velo ergonomics” unit for rowing is removed from the Swedish wall. And everything is very compact, multifunctional and, most importantly, there are no power costs, no need to take additional engines with you into space.
What kind of factory did you work?
TsNPO "Leninets". Super-equipment for navigation was made there.The receiver "Leningrad-10" is one of my first works at the plant. Then there was a two-cassette tape recorder, a counter for taxi drivers, a receiver with spaced acoustics, a cassette player for audio cassettes, "Argo", a radio tape recorder "Galaktika", for which I received a medal.
Tower "XX-XXI" - a monument dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Russian avant-garde. What inspired you to create it?
I was inspired by the fact that in our country there is nothing as deep as Black Square. This was not inspiration, but something else, an insult, perhaps. I'm terribly offended. All modern art: Western, Western European, American, all of it was formed only thanks to such as Malevich, Kandinsky, Leonidov in architecture and others.It turns out that the Russian avant-garde served the development of Western art?
Yes! Absolutely! Most recently, the Hermitage hosted an exhibition of Zaha Hadid. She said that the Russian avant-garde is her icon. But we have not set anything and do not relate to it in any way.Why are you using this material? Why gloss?
Here is the Hermitage's leading specialist in contemporary art D.Yu. Ozerkov. I was also asked: “Why don’t you have an invoice?” I personally think that everything related to texture is a hoax. "Decorative". You can't deceive a form with an invoice. The water is smooth in a calm state - our most secret weapon. Without water and without air, mankind could not exist. I naturally learn from nature. The smooth shape of water, ideally smooth, one can only envy how easily it makes colossal planes perfectly even. Moreover, it organizes itself. Earth cannot, but water is easy. And what is this smooth shape for? Maybe there is a colossal energy on its surface, but we cannot use this energy.Does it happen in the flight of creative thought that you are faced with restrictions imposed by nature itself? That is the force of attraction, for example.
I'll tell you what limitations I face. Now, if all these thoughts and ideas and concepts - all this would come to me at the age of 20, I would be happy. But, unfortunately, it was already the 6th decade when I began to think seriously about what was happening around me. And this is the biggest difficulty. Do not unbend another time ...Here we touched on the time period 20 years ago and now. I would like to ask about the viewer: The viewer of that time of your first sculpture and the viewer now. How does the change of generations affect?
Fundamentally does not change. They groan, gasp, kill me with the question - “Why did you do this?”Do you consider all your work completed?
No. I always have a constant feeling of dissatisfaction. I would like to do it differently, not fundamentally differently, but somewhere in the details, but in a different way. The vision is constantly changing. There was such a professor Shaposhnikov M.A. in Kharkov, he studied at the Bauhaus with Kandinsky. He was already over 80 when I was studying. He put marks on the end of the tablet. Tak walks along the wall and watches how the tablet is stretched, and bets 3-2. I go to my tablet, and I have 5. Gennady Stepanovich, my first curator, said: “If I were you, I would cut out this five from the tablet, go up to Shaposhnikov and take an autograph. You don't know what Shaposhnikov is. No one has ever had an A in history. You're the first". Vaks I.A. when he found out that Shaposhnikov was my teacher, he shook hands and bowed. But in general, everything related to study, I would accumulate everything on the theory of those architects, artists, designers of the early 20th century. They wrote so much. We, our generation, have been robbed with terrible force. There were so many unique theories on constructivism.Since when did you switch to such shaping from industrial design?
Since childhood. Always did it.And what is the principle of the technique of performing your work?
The technique of execution is as follows: This is the mind. It must be equipped with all the intricacies of technology that existed before me. My knowledge is my main tool. Then intuition. What to do with them? How to compress all this knowledge so that it turns into a form, into an image. But when I started sculpting (about a tower, a pyramid), I almost went crazy, from how much I learned new things in the process. That is, everything that is new in art is only the topmost layer, like an iceberg.It is necessary to create such a thing so that it is more significant than the previous ones. Words are born on the basis of form, as in Brodsky's:
Here in the hills, among the empty skies,
Among the roads leading only to the forest,
Life retreats from itself
And looks with amazement at the forms.
At first with surprise, and then the perception of the quintessence begins, what it is - the form, what stands behind it.
I would like everything that you see to be realized not only at the level of biology "like - dislike", but on the basis of the mind, so that the perception goes through the primary - through the mind. For you to have understanding.
Thank you very much for an interesting conversation. You can listen endlessly. Lucky is the one who gets to your lecture.
Was glad.The meeting was cordial and warm. During the conversation, Vladimir Borisovich not only shared his views on what is happening in contemporary art, but also revealed the deep essence of his works, showed the path that he goes through every time he creates his masterpieces. To hear firsthand how an idea was born and how an art object was created is one of the rarest opportunities that we get in life. We hope that Vladimir Borisovich will long years will delight and inspire us with his creativity.
Often the reason for an unsuccessful repair is a banal misunderstanding: the client asks for one thing, the designer hears another - and now the project turns out to be completely different from what we would like. It is not so difficult to speak the same language with a specialist, it is enough to carefully prepare and follow simple rules. Which one, the designer will tell.
Anastasia Orlova graduated from the ArtFuture Design School with a degree in interior design. IN currently is a student of the Faculty of Architecture of one of the oldest universities in the world - Roman La Sapienza. Now continues to work private practice in Russia, leading projects remotely and with the help of a team of like-minded people. Works on both private interiors of apartments, cottages, and projects of restaurants and hotels.
Let's say I found someone to contact and made an appointment. What should be considered in advance? Do you need to come with clear wishes or some kind of common vision, or is it still formed in the process of communicating with the designer?
It will be useful to start “dreaming” in advance, carry the idea of a future home in your head, flip through pictures on the Internet and save them, write down or send yourself messages with thoughts about the necessary functionality. Thus, examining your daily habits, you will notice the nuances and, together with the designer, will be able to fine-tune your future home for yourself. It is very important at the stage of dreaming to look at and save pictures. These are not always clear “I want like this” images - you may like a certain element in them, or a color scheme, or a functional solution - everything that resonates with you in some way. Why does it matter? In addition to helping the designer understand your stylistic preferences, it is equally important that in the process of looking at examples, there is a qualitative evolution of taste preferences. And what at the very beginning seems terribly original to you, after a while is perceived as hackneyed and tasteless. So let this growth happen through examples on the Internet and before creating your own interior.
If you feel up to making a short or detailed wish list before meeting with a designer, great! But at the same time, if it seems to you that in your head total chaos and you are not able to structure your thoughts, you should not be afraid or ashamed of this. Tell the designer about your wishes in the order in which they are remembered, or come to the word, or are written down by you. Subsequently, the designer will process the information from your conversation, systematize and form a technical task based on it - an integral part of the contract.
In addition, the designer will ask additional questions or offer a questionnaire - they will also lead you to thoughts that may not have occurred to you. Ultimately, the terms of reference will be born in the process of dialogue.
Probably, it’s still worth adding a fly in the ointment and noting that an insufficiently detailed technical task is detrimental to the customer: for reworking a far-reaching project due to wishes that were not voiced in advance, the designer may ask for an additional payment, and even live in an interior that does not meet all needs, little joy.
Should I argue with a specialist? For example, I really want one large chandelier, but they offer me spotlights?
No need to argue. Both the designer and the customer should always remember that the goal is the same. We need to listen carefully to each other and not let stubbornness and our own ambitions take over. "Should I insist?" - the question is too ambiguous: being inside the situation, you will not find an objective answer to it. Trying to distinguish between the areas in which one side or the other has the prerogative, very generally I would say this:
In terms of aesthetics:
- if you are in doubt general image interior, then insist on further search;
- if you are embarrassed individual elements interior and the designer assures that this is how it should be, perhaps it is worth listening to a professional more, because unlike the customer, who often sees the constituent elements, the designer has a vision of the project as a whole.
As part of the functional side of the issue, in my opinion, the opinion of the customer is decisive. But still remember: in front of you is a person who regularly encounters issues of organizing space - most likely, he has something to advise you.
- If I don't know the special terms, will we understand each other?
Just as you don't need to be fluent in medical terminology when you go to a doctor's appointment, it won't be a problem when talking to a designer. The designer will never begin to "diagnose" based on how you call your favorite style - the conclusion will be drawn from the pictures and many other indirect signs. And, of course, the designer is interested in conveying his idea to you in a normal language.
- What, besides the technical parameters of the room, matters? My habits, pets?
Literally everything matters: the habits and interests of each family member, their life inside and outside the home, the circle of household members, guests and relatives. Growth, possible allergies, pets are important - the list is endless and is discussed at the stage of drawing up the terms of reference (it may be replenished in the process). And the more of these parameters you and the designer manage to use, the more thoughtful and tailored your interior will be.
- What are the most common mistakes customers make when communicating?
- You should always keep in mind that you and the designer are one team that goes to the realization of the project, and your common goal- to realize this project in the best possible way. If there is opposition in a relationship, then something is not working properly.
- You hire a designer to provide you with a service to create a living space. If at the same time you do not listen to his advice, make emotional purchases of materials or elements that do not correspond to the idea, make changes to the project yourself, then you will receive less benefit from the ordered service.
- I would recommend always ordering a project with the selection of materials and architectural supervision. This disciplines the designer, not allowing creativity to break away from earthly realities, and ensures you the embodiment of ideas not only on paper, but also in life. A very small percentage of customers can carry out this work on their own.
Take care of designers and remember that you will have to work in conjunction with him from several months to several years (depending on the scale of the project) - during this time people often manage to get quite close.
Photos: jennifercovingtondesigns.weebly.com, gallery-ot.ru, storyhouse.pw
