The ready-made world of the future by Roboburo

solo show Gosha Ostretsov

Winzavod Central Exhibition Centre
4th Syromyatnichesky Lane, 1/8, p. 9

05.12.23 — 22.01.24

On 5th December a—s—t—r—a contemporary art gallery will present a solo exhibition of the artist Gosha Ostretsov, participant of the Venice Biennale (2009) and creator of the VGLAZ community of artists. 

Gosha Ostretsov's new solo exhibition will feature works produced as part of the 'ColLab' programme of the workshops of the 'Vaults' Art Production Centre of the 'HES-2' House of Culture.

Gosha Ostretsov on the ROBOBURO symbol

"For me, lightning is a symbol of art. As a fire from above, tamed by man not for warmth or cooking, but for the continuation of daylight hours, rest after the day's hunting. And then, remembering the working day, man began to create images: first with a burning stick and 'coal', then using more resistant materials." 

"Oh, wondrous old world!

Look left, look right. The avant-garde is a hundred years old, and it is still avant-garde. The Russian avant-garde is an undoubted treasure of world culture. What is preserved in history better and more reliable than art? Scratch the avant-garde and through it will peep and Renaissance, and Gothic....

Artist Gosha Ostretsov scrapes and scratches the geometric shapes and pure colours of suprematist compositions and shows the viewer the gut and lining of the avant-garde, adds patina to century-old ideas. With a masterful movement he transforms designs into works of art. All crafts before any practical purpose take on an artistic significance. Textiles, ceramics, furniture, everything that VKhUTEMAS and Bauhaus intended to transfer from art to everyday life, makes a reverse turn in Ostretsov's hands. Artistic value above all. The physical world in his view is governed by the artist. Questions of world order in Ostretsov's cosmogony are left to the artist. Lightning is his symbol. Prometheus, who stole the fire of knowledge, is his hero. All achievements of science and technology - robots, AI - are subordinated to the demiurge, sanctified by his artistic idea, taste and style. Style is a man, said Buffon. In Gosha Ostretsov's world, style is a god. Ideas and facts of history are transformed by style.

The audience is presented with a phantasmagorical world of the artist's ideas. Ostretsov's favourite and constant heroes are robots, robotic members of the ‘new government’ who are both objects and subjects of this world. In ‘ROBOBOBURO’ is kept a relic - a leather apron of the chief master, incognito, unnamed chief creator. On the apron is an emblem - a zigzag of lightning, in which Gosha puts many meanings: a fire of knowledge, a flash that illuminates the creator's intellect, an additional light granted from above that extends the daylight hours for art.     

A repository for the archive of documents and at the same time a lamp in the form of the same lightning bolt is a recurring ornament on the robots' clothes. A whole collection of clothes is presented in human and miniature, doll size. ‘Haute-futur’ is the witty title of this collection. Ceramic reliefs with domestic scenes from the life of robots, tables, chairs, table lamps, clocks, barometers can be used with equal success both in human life and in the future world of robots of artificial intelligence. The aesthetics of Suprematism in a contemporary context is both recognisable and avant-garde to the modern viewer. The sculpture 'roboscraps', a mechanical light fixture in the form of a robot family that replicates the human family, is made using modern technology and materials. The humanisation of robots, the artist's attempts to introduce AI into creativity, offer the viewer an immersion into the real life of the future imagined by the artist. And artists, as the experience of mankind shows, have visionary qualities.

ROBOBOBURO with the help of AI calculates ideal creative spaces according to the principle of radiant existence of avant-garde artist Larionov. His direction of rayonism is taken as a basis. Using the algorithms of the Russian avant-garde of a century ago, which changed our reality, the AI continues to change it in the vertical space of thinking.

ROBOBOBURO is a bridge between the virtual consciousness of the AI and the reality of the material world. 
ROBOBOBURO is the perfect proportion of rational convenience and irrational creative flight of fancy.
ROBOBOBURO Creates things you never dreamed of, expands consciousness, gives you the keys to harmonise cognitive dissonance.
ROBOBOBURO comes to this abode of sorrow and decay to create a visible forecourt of otherworldly bliss in his indefatigable creative energy of creation.

The world created by Gosha Ostretsov is harmonious and flawless. And if one artist is able to create such a world on the bones of the avant-garde, can artists really be entrusted with managing everything? At least to try. It certainly won't be worse."

Text by LARISA SEKHON