Sopromat

The exhibition’s title of “Sopromat” is no matter of chance. The word is a contraction of the Russian “soprotivlenie materialov,” literally translating as “the resistance of materials.” This is the science of the study of capacities of hard constructions to resist external tension. The subject is a fundamental discipline in any general engineering education, the study of which is compulsory for all students of technical higher education establishments. Nevertheless, the entire history of the arts, stretching back centuries, is a clear example of the fact that man’s struggle against the resistance of materials is not just the prerogative of the technically minded. Today, the “resistance of materials” constitutes the practiсe of interaction with a material, the means for its discovery, suppression and positioning in which the private expression of the author is balanced in the opposition “material – artist.” This is an exhibition with an unresolved finale: does this mean that the material, transformed and evaluated by the artist as a work of art, has been defeated and has lost its freedom, or, on the contrary, in becoming a work of art, has the material acquired freedom and found its finest destiny?

Vladimir Potapov, Yana Smurova, curators

The participants:
Dmitry Gutov, Alexander Brodsky, Nikolai Polissky, AES + F, Grisha Bruskin, Aladdin Garunov, Ivan Gorshkov, Recycle, Where dogs run, Nikolai Alekseev, Andrey Kuzkin, Tatiana Hengstler, Jhanna Kadyrova, Irina Korina, Vladimir Kozin, MishMash, Ilya Orlov, Sergey Shekhovtsov, Thanatos Banionis.