Vladimir Chernyshev’s black hole appeared in the center of Moscow

An installation by a Nizhny Novgorod artist in the shape of the largest sundial in Russia is covered with “living darkness”

A black hole has formed in the courtyard of the Museum of Moscow – a gap in timelessness. It is precisely this metaphor—of a cosmic object where time is lost and moves according to its own laws—that is embedded in the concept of the art object “Sundial” by artist from Nizhny Novgorod Vladimir Chernyshev, who became one of the participants in the “Here and Now” street art festival. The art object, covered with flowing tar, has the shape of an archetypal sundial – it can be used to determine “natural” time, which, however, does not coincide with what the usual electronic clocks show, because since 1970, humanity has lived according to a single time standard, UTC, in essence – according to a fictitious time. “MK” visited the installation of an unusual installation.

Workers heat several barrels of “living darkness” over a fire, occasionally adding wood to the makeshift stove. The pungent smell of boiling tar spreads across the courtyard of the Museum of Moscow. “Just don’t come close, if it splashes on your skin, it will burn,” the worker carefully warns when I go behind the restrictive tape to take a photo. Large scoops of tar are poured over the dial of the sundial, giving it an amber-black tint. The peculiarity of the material made from oil waste is that in the heat it “flows” strongly, and at average temperatures it flows slowly. It begins to melt at 12 degrees. This is living material that is constantly changing. Over time, the dial will become covered with dust and acquire a matte and possibly reddish tint, but for now it shines brightly. So much so that you can see your reflection in the blackness. The spectacle is mesmerizing, and time seems to disappear while you look at the Roman numerals, as if floating on a dark substance.

“It came as a surprise to us that this sundial turned out to be the largest in Russia,” says festival curator Anna Malik-Korolenkova. — We didn’t set a goal to break the record, it happened by accident. The Guinness Book of Records included a mosaic clock from Svetlogorsk, but it was recently dismantled and sent to Kaliningrad for restoration. So ours turned out to be the largest, the diameter of the dial is 9 meters.

— Is this the first installation of the “Here and Now” festival installed this year?

— No, we have already completed two art objects: “Bird Watching” is a modern enlarged version of the shape of the whistle bird – St. Petersburg resident Andrei Lyublinsky at Bread Factory No. 9 and “Wind” by Rodion Artamonov in Zaryadye Park. In the coming months, 7 more street sculptures and murals will appear in Moscow. This year, the festival places great emphasis on the work of regional authors. With the Museum of Moscow and the Sundial installed here, for example, there was an amazing connection, since the history of the museum association dates back to the exhibition of the Moscow Pavilion at the All-Russian Art and Industrial Exhibition of 1896 in Nizhny Novgorod. And Vladimir Chernyshev is a Nizhny Novgorod artist. This is not the first time he has created an art object using tar. One of them, “Swimming Pool,” was among the finalists for the 2021 Kandinsky Prize. The “pool” filled with petroleum products was dedicated to the contradictions between nature and man. In the new project, the same material speaks of another conflict – the sense of time.

“Gudron here represents a metaphor for a black hole where time disappears,” says the MK artist. – This is the node where the past, present and future meet, and the metaphor of a black hole allows you to connect these times in one place. The image of a sundial fits perfectly with the concept associated with the philosophy of temporality. We did not want to overload the art object with strange shapes, so the sundial gnomon (pointer), by the shadow of which one can measure time, has an archetypal shape.

In order to properly install and configure the sundial, a specialist was invited – gnomonic Alexey Krutyakov. He explained to MK that in order for the sundial to work, it had to be installed at the right degree in relation to the sun. It is determined at true noon, which according to the usual time in Moscow latitude and longitude occurs at 12.20. An expert on sundials, of which there are no more than 50 in the world, appreciated the artist’s idea.

“Solar time measures local time, but it does not coincide with the one by which we live,” says the gnomonic. — We have been living in virtual time for half a century. In programming, this is called the “Unix” era – the first gadgets came out in the 1970s with such a chip, and so far. Noon local time occurs when the sun is exactly in the south at its maximum point, according to generally accepted time in Moscow at this moment 12.20. Sundials generally have magical properties that ancient people understood well, but in the last hundred years most people have lost this knowledge. Time is uneven and nonlinear; at different times of the year it flows in its own way. For example, people used to divide the light and dark hours of the day into 12 parts, so the hours were different in winter and summer. Now time is unified.

That is, the accepted change in time is to some extent a fiction. True time depends on location, and in general, each person has his own internal rhythm. So Vladimir Chernyshev’s black hole is more than a metaphor. You can study the magic of time using the Sundial at the Museum of Moscow until May next year. By spring, when it warms up again and the surface of the dial comes to life again after the cold and begins to move.