Artist Pavel Otdelnov's latest work is a study of the life of Moscow’s residential districts: grim post-Soviet landscapes with panel skyscrapers and endless power lines stretching into the unknown.
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Pavel Otdelnov, Courtesy of MMOMA
Artist Pavel Otdelnov's latest work is a study of the life of Moscow’s residential districts: grim post-Soviet landscapes with panel skyscrapers and endless power lines stretching into the unknown.
Pavel Otdelnov, Courtesy of MMOMA
The series is the result of a psychogeographical study of Zapadnoe Degunino, a microregion of Moscow, two-thirds of which is given over to industrial zones. The works were exhibited at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art in 2014.
Pavel Otdelnov, Courtesy of MMOMA
As in all outlying districts, new trade and logistics centers are cropping up — alien structures among the monotone Central Russian-style landscape that seem to exist outside of time.
Pavel Otdelnov, Courtesy of MMOMA
The artist tries to capture the elusiveness of modernity and construct an image of the new Russian landscape.
Pavel Otdelnov, Courtesy of MMOMA
Pavel Otdelnov has a discerning eye for signs of reality that commonly go unnoticed: post-Soviet wastelands with endless power cables leading nowhere and ubiquitous P-44 panel apartment blocks.
Pavel Otdelnov, Courtesy of MMOMA
In depicting what most do not — garish hangar-size shopping centers seemingly cast off from standard multistorey residential buildings, the artist recreates the atmosphere of life in the metropolis.
Pavel Otdelnov, Courtesy of MMOMA
In it, surrounding objects are mere decorations viewed from the window of a moving vehicle. Every day millions of people pass this way, measuring the distance in power transmission towers, and then expunge it from their lives as a period of mindless loneliness.
Pavel Otdelnov, Courtesy of MMOMA
“My idea was not to create a portrait of the district. After all, the exhibition is called 'Inner Degunino' — that’s because it reflects something personal, something that’s mine. I was searching for a desolate, provincial place where you can feel the beating of time,” says Otdelnov.
Pavel Otdelnov, Courtesy of MMOMA
Otdelnov’s urban landscapes are devoid of people, with one exception: a lone figure in an elevator, which happens to be a self-portrait. In the artist's own words, it is “a defenseless soul trapped in a cold, empty space.”
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