Held for the eighth year running, the ArchStoyanie summer festival attracts both fans of contemporary art and people who simply feel like taking a trip to the outdoors.
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Sergey Mikheyev / RG
Acoustic installations of all kinds, a breathtaking performance by naked Russian artist Fyodor Andreevich Pavlov, and modern poetry all came together at ArchStoyanie—a three-day festival of architecture and art at Nikola-Lenivets, four hours outside of Moscow.
Sergey Mikheyev / RG
Held for the eighth year running, the ArchStoyanie summer festival attracts both fans of contemporary art and people who simply feel like taking a trip to the outdoors.
Sergey Mikheyev / RG
The name of the festival translates as "Archaic Standing," in reference to the historic event that took place here more than five centuries ago: the Great Standing on the Ugra River.
Yaroslava Kiryukhina
This was a bloodless standoff between the Khan of the Golden Horde, Akhmat, and Grand Duke Ivan III of Russia. The two leaders were on opposite sides of the Ugra River, a tributary of the Oka River, along which ran the border of the Duchy of Moscow. In autumn 1480, this standoff marked the final fall of the Tatars’ Golden Horde yoke.
Yaroslava Kiryukhina
Since 2000 the village of Nikola-Lenivets has become an outpost of modern art, thanks to the work of Nikolay Polissky. Together with peasants, local residents from nearby villages, he has created set of objects around the village.
Yaroslava Kiryukhina
It were armies of snowmen, towers made of hay, fire wood, rods. To look on the objects art experts, journalists and spectators have started to arrive. Polissky organized several art events, when he understood that it is time to take things more seriously. And in 2005 he made a decision to found the festival, called “Archstoyanie”
Sergey Mikheyev / RG
Land-art installations dot the picturesque countryside around the village of Nikola-Lenivets, which translates as “Lazy Nick” and has been transformed into an artists' colony over the last decade.
Sergey Mikheyev / RG
Most of the outdoor installations were created by Nikolai Polissky, an artist who moved to Nikola-Lenivets in 1989. Traditional land-art is a form of art that uses materials from the natural environment, such as hay, logs, soil and clay.
Yaroslava Kiryukhina
According to Polissky, a former member of the underground Soviet art collective known as Mitki, it does not require a viewer; instead, land art is created only for self-expression, being a so-called pure art.
Sergey Mikheyev / RG
Mr. Polissky worries that Archstoyanie is becoming too commercial, too organized and too trendy. But he is well aware that contemporary art in Russia these days needs official support to flourish, and he does network with gallery owners, businessmen and politicians for the sponsorship needed to turn the region into a contemporary art capital.
Yaroslava Kiryukhina
The centrepiece of “Universal Mind” there was a sculpture with two hemispheres of a mechanical brain on a pedestal with a colonnade of forty-two rockets. In his biggest installation, Nikolai Polissky, the adherent of natural materials, offered a new vision of the wooden sculpture.
Sergey Mikheyev / RG
This time there were no new installations, even though ArchStoyanie had previously showcased the most recent land-art objects each year. Newly appointed curator Katerina Bochvar decided to focus on various performances.
Sergey Mikheyev / RG
ArchStoyanie organizers claimed that these performances would only be available for the festival’s visitors and would not be repeated anywhere else.
