Artists

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		POLISSKY Nikolay

Biographical information: 1957 was born in Moscow, Russia
1982 College of Art and Industry, Saint Petersburg, Russia
1989 own a house in Nikola-Lenivec village
Founder of social project "Nikolo-Leniveckie Promisli"
Collections where works are held
Participation in exhibitions and auctions: SELECTED PROJECTS AND EXHIBITIONS:
1989 The Mitki in Europe (as a member of The Mitki), Cologne, Paris, Antwerp
1990 The Logic of Paradox (as a member of The Mitki), Palace of Youth, Moscow
1993 The Mitki, Retrospective exhibition to mark the 10th anniversary of The Mitki, State 1993 Russian Museum, St. Petersburg
1995-1996 How to Draw a Horse, exhibition/action, Central House of Artists, Moscow
1996 The Mitki, Art Moscow, Central House of Artists, Moscow
1997 Vodka (as a member of The Mitki), Marat Guelman Gallery, Moscow; Moscow
1997 International Forum for Artistic Initiatives, New Manezh, Moscow;
1997 The Mitki Honour the Navy (as a member of The Mitki), Central Naval Museum, St. Petersburg;
1997 The Mitki. The General Staff building (as a member of The Mitki), action on Gogol’evsky Bul’var, Moscow;
1997 The Mitki’s New Year’s Party, New Year’s Party on Manezhnaya Square, Moscow
1999 The Manilov project (in collaboration with Konstantin Batynkov & Sergey Lobanov), Toko Tower, Moscow;
1999 Temple of Solitary Reflection (installation in collaboration with Konstantin Batynkov & Sergey Lobanov as a part of The Manilov project), Marat Guelman Gallery, Moscow
2000 Snowmen (in collaboration with Konstantin Batynkov, Sergey Lobanov). Village of Nikola-Lenivets, and Art Moscow, Central House of Artists, Moscow;
2000 New exhibits at the Moscow House of Photography, Moscow Centre for the Arts, Moscow; Art forum, Central Exhibition Hall, Perm
2001 Tower, Village of Nikola-Lenivets; Art Moscow, Central House of Artists, Moscow; and State Centre for Contemporary Art, Nizhny Novgorod; New Exhibits at the Moscow House of Photography. Moscow House of Photography, Moscow
2002 Aqueduct, Village of Nikola-Lenivets;
Exhibition of Russian Photography at the Stand of Carre Noir Gallery at Paris Photo, 2002, Paris;
2002 Modern Russian Photography, 2nd Pro Zrenie International Photography Festival, Nizhny Novgorod;
2002 Woodpile, Village of Nikola-Lenivets;
2002 Photobiennale 2002, International Month of Photography in Moscow, Manezh Central Exhibition Hall, Moscow;
2002 Workshops at Art Moscow, Central House of Artists, Moscow;
2002 Tower, De Moscou, Le Quartier Centre for Contemporary Art, Quimper, France;
2002 Column Made from Grapewood (installation in collaboration with Mikhail Bulanenkov), Est-Ouest festival, Die, France;
2002 Picturesque Tower, installation at Artmanezh 2002, Manezh Central Exhibition Hall, Moscow
2003 Media tower, Village of Nikola-Lenivets;
2003 Workshops at Art Moscow, Central House of Artists, Moscow;
2003 Neue Ansatze / Zeitgenossische Kunst aus Moskau, Kunsthalle Dusseldorf, Dusseldorf;
2003 Art Bazaar (curator alexander panov), Art Klyazma festival, Former Klyazma Reservoir Guesthouse, Moscow region;
2003 Empire column, Artmanezh 2003, Manezh Central Exhibition Hall, Moscow
2004 Shrovetide at Nikola-Lenivets (action in collaboration with German Vinogradov, Aleksandr Shaburov and inhabitants of the Village of Nikola-Lenivets), Village of Nikola-Lenivets;
2004 Art Bazaar 2, Art-Klyazma festival, Former Klyazma Reservoir Guesthouse, Moscow region;
2004 Towers, Dimitrovgrad Museum of Local History, Dimitrovgrad; and Ulyanov Regional Museum of Folk Art, Ulyanovsk;
2004 Beacon on the Ugra, Village of Nikola-Lenivets;
2004 Beacon on the Ugra Action (action in collaboration with Vyacheslav Mizin, Aleksandr Panov, Asya Silaeva, Konstantin Skotnikov and Aleksandr Shaburov], Village of Nikola-Lenivets;
2004 Nizhny Novgorod Slide. Nizhny Novgorod
2005 Baykonur, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow (as part of the 1st Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art);
2005 Slide-labyrinth, Art-Klyazma Festival, Former Klyazma Reservoir Guesthouse, Moscow region (as part of the 1st Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art);
2005 Likhoborskie Gate (in collaboration with Galina Likhterova), Moscow
2006 Taming of the Fire, or Russian Cosmism (in collaboration with German Vinogradov), Village of Nikola-Lenivets;
2006 Park for one day, action held as part of Vladimir Potanin’s competition «The changing museum in a changing world», Voskresensk, Moscow region.
2007 Borders of The Empire, Village of Nikola-Lenivets;
2007 Diary of an Artist, exhibition at the Marat Guelman Gallery, Central House of Artists, Moscow
2008 The Rooks Have Returned, Village of Nikola-Lenivets;
2008 Firebird, Village of Nikola-Lenivets
2008 Personal exposition in Russian Exhibition Hall on Biennale Architecture in Venice;
2008 Borders of The Empire on the streets of Perm, within Perm Museum of Contemporary Art;
2008 «The Rooks have returned» on «Russian Dreams» at Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, USA;
2009 «Large Hadron Collider», installation in Museum of Contemprorary Art of Luxembourg (MUDAM);
2009 «Blinding Machine» on «Russian Povera» within 3 Moscow Bienalle of Contemporary Art, Perm Museum of Contemporary Art, Red October gallery (Moscow);
2009 Exposition of «Large Hadron Collider» on Labour Movement within 3 Moscow Bienalle of Contemporary Art, Project_Fabrika gallery;
2009 Exposition of «Blinding Machine» on exhibition of the nominees for Kandinsky Prizez 2009, Central House of Artists, Moscow;
Autobiographical notes
What the critics say: Nikolay Polissky is the only land-artist in modern Russian Art. Starting 2000th he was creating most his works in the village Nikola Lenivets, the Kaluga Region, four hours drive from Moscow, from expedient materials and in co-authorship with the local villagers. His art may be called Utopian, both in social and art sense. And moreover, this Utopia is materialized Utopia. In social determination, Polissky succeeded in depicting and reviving a semi-abandoned village, with help of Art turning it into a real cultural center (an international festival of landscape architecture “ArchStoyanie” has been passing here since 2003) and making its inhabitants real participants of a creative process. As to the artistic project of the artist, it is some kind of growing symbolic forms of world architecture in the Russian soil, from ancient times to modernism: the Roman snow aqueduct, Babylonian ziggurat of sheaves, branchwood constructed resemblances of Vladimir Shukhov’s Radiotower or the sky-scraper Defence Arch. Made of local materials and in technique referring to traditional village craftworks or funs, they discover universalism and naturalness of not only archetypical constructions, common to all cultures, but also of some natural phenomena like bird nests or beaver dams. «Large Hadron Collider» is a work from a new project, invented by Nikolay Polissky. Now the unpuddled mirror of people`s conscience must reflect not classic inheritance of the World Architecture, but the latest scientific achievements. Strictly speaking, there was a work of this kind by Polissky – “Baykonur”, 2005: a huge installation consisting of models of rockets and launching systems entwined of twig. First exhibited in the yard of the Tretyakov’s gallery during the First Moscow Biennale of Modern Art, this installation was then transferred to Nikola Lenivets, where later it was burnt in the course of traditional Shrovetide fest. It was already there when science could have been read through prism of ritual and magic. Flame made the interlink between space rockets and their twigged copies. And the outflow to extraterrestrial space turned into burning bringing to memory funeral pyres that provide the dead to pass to the afterworld. The «Hadron Collider» by Polissky and his co-authors, first of all interests with that half-mystical aureole mantling modern science. Contemporary scientists for Polissky are kind of oracles, privy to secrets of universe hidden for ordinary people, and maybe even capable to influence forces ruling the world. And that is not that far from truth: few of us can really explain how the Large Hadron Collider is constructed and what purposes it serves. Scientific world view, same as magical or religious world view may only be taken for granted. The « Large Hadron Collider» by Polissky and co-authors is a simulated implementation of that very machine, from which God may emerge.
Irina Kulik // "Large Hadron Collider. Nikolay Polissky & Nikola-Lenivets Crafts"; on the MADAM exposition.
Bibliography

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