Ruinart Art Patronat grant 2017 winner is Alexey Martins

The project is implemented as part of the Ruinart Art Patronat grant programme with the support of Cosmoscow Foundation.

The installation of Alexey Martins consists of two parts. They are visually identical but mirrored with respect to each other and spaced apart. The first one entitled "Black Forest" is installed at the entrance area of Cosmoscow venue. It represents a space of an uneven and ruined soil that conjures up the image of sprouted mycelium, crystalline structures or calcareous skeletons of various organisms living on the seabed. This space encircles the audience from each and every side. Once the people get inside they blend into the setting and become parts of the general sculptural composition. The second part entitled "Black Sky" is situated at the opposite side of Gostiny Dvor. It appears to the audience as pure materialized air so compressed that it hangs over the "inhabitants" of this territory as some kind of threatening stalactite.

In Siberia, where Martins comes from, there is a special term "black sky mode" for a similar ecological situation. It serves as the starting point for the artist in his ecological research, while the artist himself is far from being critical. The artist acts from the standpoint of a researcher who is trying to find out how the picture of the world transforms as the environment changes.

In the form of an installation, Martins captures a non-existent imaginary landscape, a new state of nature as a natural habitat. This landscape image reveals the "second nature" of man, a culture that is still looking for new expressive means for portraying the difficult relations between a person and everything that is opposed to him.

Alexey Maslyaev, curator of the Cosmoscow International Contemporary Art Fair NonCommercial Programme