13.07.2018
Pirogov Daniil
Artist, architect
The reality around me often seems confusing and complicated, so I try to find guidance through my own myths. My mythology has its origins in my childhood experiences and is supplemented by my daily experiences.
My art is an attempt to capture the dynamic world in statics, to question what is reality and what is myth.
My artistic method implies the abolition of the linearity of time, I address a reality in which all variations of what is happening exist right now, overlapping each other. In my understanding, the world is a single mythological spatial landscape, continuously shaped by the layering of events and representations of them.
I address the notion of the irrelevant artifact - an object that should not be according to official history. In creating such objects, I offer my own version of what is happening.
I came to art from architecture and took all the essentials with me: concrete, wire, tracing paper and the basic principles of working with space. This is how I turn utilitarian materials into objects of art. It is important for me to show the routine process of creating an artifact, to deconstruct the ritual, to deconstruct it into its components.
By unpacking myth, I remove the veil of sacredness and mysticism, craftsmanship becomes important again. Sculpture is not born in a momentary burst of revelation,
HO in a long and consistent process
of mixing the concrete. I find a balance between my own exposure to the material and the influence of its physical properties.
I work in the studio, in the woods and outdoors. I call the totality of the studio objects and practices a bestiary. It is a large layered system in which each creature (or object) is an answer to my long term and current questions. The very first and foremost character in my mythology is the earth bird. It embodies the inner heaviness, the bogging down, the inability to break away, the sense of duty and attachment to a place.
The graphics are created on several layers, and all but the last are hidden from the viewer. The concrete millipede is an instrument of communication, an artifact object responsible for dialogue and search for solutions. The balance of concrete and wire structure makes it possible to determine the characteristic properties of each "class" of artifacts.
My mythological system is never static - it is constantly being renewed and updated with new patterns and characters, or freed from them. When working with context, I combine my own mythology with local mythology by juxtaposing events, characters, and stories. Often I add found local materials and objects to my work, "preserving" them within concrete sculptures