Graduates of creative universities showed off their achievements in the parking lot and held a disco

We assessed the course taken by young artists, designers and architects

450 works by 255 young authors from 20 creative universities occupied an area of ​​3,000 sq.m., only not in some prestigious gallery, but in the parking lot of Zaryade Park. An informal space, quite in line with the fashionable trend for ascetic lofts, turned out to be just right for a project that demonstrated the aspirations of the younger generation of artists, architects and designers.

Among the concrete partitions in the semi-darkness of a spacious parking lot, disco music suddenly sounds. A crowd of dancing young people, one of whom holds a massive tape recorder on his shoulder, skips past, luring them to their party. In the depths of space, in the light of blue and red projectors, they stop and begin a dance battle in the style of breakdancing. One after another, “yesterday’s students” show themselves – who can do what. With such an incendiary show, graduates of creative universities celebrated the completion of their large-scale exhibition of graduation works. It was staged by director Yuri Kvyatkovsky, and the roles of the dancing students were performed by professional actors from the Brusnikina Workshop. However, real graduates of creative universities danced with pleasure along with the artists.

The mood of an informal graduation without solemn speeches and evening dresses turned out to be quite appropriate in the parking lot, where art entered two years ago along with Marina Zvyagintseva’s “Water Line” project (an installation with epiphytic plants blooming without soil in transparent pipes is still here today). Now it has grown from a spot into a full-fledged gallery space adjacent to the parking lot. And, it must be said that despite the youth format at the exhibition “Issue” there are many deep, thoughtful works, not devoid of humor and lightness.

The strong work of the Stroganovka ceramics department is noteworthy. For example, Kristina Gavrilova created children’s knitted toys – a plush bunny, a lost mitten, a fluffy dog, which seemed to be lost among the construction of a new residential area. Ceramics, a durable but fragile material, also reflects the theme of childhood: the earliest memories are the most fragile, but they are the ones that grow deepest into memory. The gentle image of an elusive childhood, created under the guidance of Professor Oleg Tatarintsev, immediately sinks into the heart. Next to it is another ceramic story about childhood: the work “0-14” by Elizaveta Popova, created under the guidance of a young teacher Elizaveta Semenova. Before us are Tamagotchis and a pacifier enlarged many times over, made of ceramic. The pacifier is decorated with the inscriptions “peace”, “sleep”, “joy”. This is already more ironic, but again a kind of farewell to childhood and a nostalgia for it. The ceramic exhibition continues with an unusual “service” of cracked elements, seemingly once destroyed and reassembled, which are covered with blue patterns and old photographs of metro stations and subway diagrams. This is another memory – and at the same time a bridge between traditions a la Gzhel and modern views on ceramic art. The author of the project “Lost in Translation” is Anastasia Nesterenko, led by Elena Yudina.

Next to the ceramists are architects and graduates of the Moscow Architectural Institute. There are both very specific proposals and purely creative fantasies. Thus, a group of five students (Natalia Gibalina, Sofia Kropiva, Olga Laikova, Zarina Lutfillina and Elizaveta Ostrikova) propose a project for a residential area in Mariupol, which involves the reconstruction of destroyed buildings and the construction of new ones. Together they imitate an artificial elevation of the relief, that is, the plain turns into a mountain, inside of which and on it multi-level buildings and public spaces grow.

The neighboring project of another group (Victor Shurygin, Akbar Asadov, Sergei Pavlov, Anna-Maria Katser) looks like pure architectural fantasy. In its center is a lake on which famous buildings float, such as one of Stalin’s high-rise buildings, historical palaces and masterpieces of constructivism. And on earth there is new architecture. For example, three tall towers connected by several residential buildings, as if floating in the air. At the top of the towers is a helipad, above which drones and small flying ships circle. The style of the buildings mixes different directions – from neoclassicism to constructivism.

The exhibition itself is also heterogeneous. Along with abstract installations in the form of a shiny pipe tied in a knot, there is painting in the spirit of socialist realism and fashion, where tradition is mixed with innovation. We live in a synthetic time, at the junction of eras, trends towards radical novelty and adherence to traditions, and the projects of graduates of creative universities are direct confirmation of this. But the fact that they are all different and everyone is looking for their own path in art from their student days cannot but rejoice.