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until 28.01. | #3772ARTatBerlin | HazeGallery presents from 20 January 2023 (Opening: 20.01.) the exhibition “Repetitive Actions” by the artist Pavel Zeldovich.
Pavel Zeldovich’s solo exhibition Repetitive Actions will open at HAZEGALLERY in Berlin on 20 January 2023.
Pavel Zeldovich developed this project in Moscow from 2021 to early 2022, when the Russian invasion of Ukraine forced him to leave his country and move to Berlin.
The project is a cross-genre series of digital prints and videos of everyday urban life. Despite their obvious diversity, the images have a common theme: a series of endlessly repeating actions. The situations depicted are not isolated moments in life, but rather parts of endlessly repeating cycles – day after day, year after year, generation after generation… Going to the supermarket, coming home from work, brushing one’s teeth in the morning, smoking on the balcony, surfing social networks on the phone – most of these things people do constantly and continuously. Repetitive Actions explores the idea of the hidden power of the "boring" daily routine. The actions themselves depicted in the images are unremarkable and trivial. But when the trivial is repeated everywhere and incessantly, it acquires enormous power over our lives. Perhaps the most remarkable work in the project, School Class, an allusion to school group photos, is, in the author’s view, an embodiment of this phenomenon of repetitive action. Almost everyone on the planet keeps similar photos at home. Despite changing generations of teachers and pupils, the strict, almost totalitarian structure of school life remains unchanged.
The project has another dimension: the historical or, one could say, the national. Zeldovich’s works, created in Russia, naturally reflect urban life in Russia and the countries of the former Soviet Union. But the phenomena and experiences depicted in these digital prints are universal and equally understandable to Europeans, Americans and Asians.
The works in this project are also united by the visual approach seen in most of Pavel Zeldovich’s works: an ironic contrast between the external, intentionally decorative effect and the ambiguous and sometimes even depressing phenomena depicted in the paintings.
The technique of 3D modelling-based works is largely the result of Pavel Zeldovich’s long international career as an architect. He was a student and later colleague of the great Zaha Hadid, who is known for introducing advanced computer-aided design techniques to architecture. As an artist, Pavel Zeldovich applies the computer skills he acquired during his many years of work as an architect in a completely new capacity.
The artistic influences that shape Pavel Zeldovich as an artist mirror the path of many contemporary artists from the former Soviet Union: echoes of the legacy of Soviet socialist realism mingle with influences from modern post-war art in the West. In Pavel’s case, these include the American photorealists of the 1970s such as Richard Estes, Ralph Goings, Chuck Close and Charles Bell. The basic principle of their work largely informed the Repetitive Actions project. These artists deliberately and meticulously reproduced on their canvases the "dreary" places of the American backwoods. The act of replicating a trivial place or object transformed these supposedly insignificant things into something important and majestic. Re-interpretations of Soviet socialist realism (drawing largely on Renaissance traditions) are readily apparent in many of the works in the Repetitive Actions project, especially in Pavel’s particular fondness for circular compositions – rotundas that in many ways parody Soviet decorative stucco on monumental facades.
About the artist: Pavel Zeldovich studied architecture in Moscow and Vienna. Before turning to art, he worked in architectural offices in Vienna, London, Moscow and New York, most notably in the internationally renowned office of Zaha Hadid. Before moving to Berlin due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Pavel participated in numerous exhibitions in Russia and abroad.
About the gallery: HAZEGALLERY was founded in 2019 with the mission to share Berlin’s contemporary art scene with the world through exhibitions, pop-up shows and art events. More information: www.haze.gallery Opening hours: Tue – Fri 11am – 3pm Sat 1pm – 4pm Sun. Closed Mon. Closed
Vernissage: Friday, 20 January 2023, from 8:00 pm
Exhibition dates: Friday, 20 January to Saturday, 28 January 2023
To the Gallery
Caption Cover photo: Courtesy HAZEGALLERY, Pavel Zeldovich
Exhibition Pavel Zeldovich – HazeGallery | Zeitgenössische Kunst in Berlin | Contemporary Art | Ausstellungen Berlin Galerien | ART at Berlin
