The Sunset Fired
a Hundred Suns
a Hundred Suns
Contemporary & Modern
Story
The exhibition The Sunset Fired a Hundred Suns traces the genealogy of cosmic dreams and despair from the avant-gardists to the present day. The title of the exhibition refers to Vladimir Mayakovsky’s poem «An Extraordinary Adventure That Happened to Vladimir Mayakovsky in the Summer at the Dacha» (1920). The energetic description of the poet’s encounter with the luminary seemed to be an exhaustive metaphor for the epoch when the utopian future was drawn close and clear. The exposition is based on the era of universal enthusiasm for the space and its depiction in Soviet art.
«The space as a multi-layered narrative, woven from fantasies and philosophical abstractions, religious concepts and ontologies, has occupied people’s imagination at all times and in all parts of the world. The exhibition The Sunset fired a hundred Suns exists at the intersection of two discursive fields.
We do not tell the history of space in art, but rather demonstrate how the cosmic imaginary was transformed in the USSR after the triumphant launch of the first Earth satellite, and mark out the prospects for the development of a critical view of space, which are rooted in the contradictory nature of modernity - in the space of competing worldviews, political and social attitudes»
We do not tell the history of space in art, but rather demonstrate how the cosmic imaginary was transformed in the USSR after the triumphant launch of the first Earth satellite, and mark out the prospects for the development of a critical view of space, which are rooted in the contradictory nature of modernity - in the space of competing worldviews, political and social attitudes»
Curator, Andrey Vasilenko
Project
Contemprary & Modern
Type
GES–2 House of Culture
Place
Bolotnaya Emb., 15, Moscow
Address
V–A–C Foundation
Initiator
Andrey Vasilenko, Artem Timonov
Curator
1 000 sq.m
Area
>150 pieces
Number of exhibits
Peter Tolpin, Anna Manzarova
Team
GES–2 House of Culture
Produced by
Daniel Annenkov
Photo
Permanent exhibition plan
The architecture of the project refers to the urban fantasies of the second half of the last century. To the austerity, non-man-made form appearing in space according to its own laws. At the same time creating an environment of harmonious coexistence of fantasy, art and man. It is impossible not to note the general sacredness of the architectural composition, which is inherent in most fantasies about the space.
The exposition is built in complete symmetry, formed by the central light axis penetrating all parts of the exposition, and the central volume, a kind of alien «ziggurat», mysterious foreign and out of proportion to the space creates the impression that the exposition space in which it is located appeared much later than the volume itself.
The exposition is built in complete symmetry, formed by the central light axis penetrating all parts of the exposition, and the central volume, a kind of alien «ziggurat», mysterious foreign and out of proportion to the space creates the impression that the exposition space in which it is located appeared much later than the volume itself.
Temprory exhibition Axonometry
Visual communication
Graphic design of the exhibition project was developed by the team of GES-2 House of Culture
«Institution communicates with its visitors in a diagrammatic language, it is a synthetic corporate identity consisting of typography and conceptual diagrams. For the exhibition “The sunset fired a hundred suns”, a style within diagrammatic language was created, a collage of diagrams and tables that is reminiscent of a spaceship dashboard or a textbook filled with star charts. Some of the diagrams on the posters and charts literally record the position of the planets in the solar system on the opening day of the exhibition. For each area of the public program, a different animated space diagram was made. The main diagram of the film program of the exhibition was a stylized natal chart»
V-A-C Foundation designer, Stepan Lipatov
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