Aleksandr Schumow
SUPREMUS
May 26, 2007 – July 7, 2007
‘Now and Today’
Schumow arranges everyday objects with own photographs and composes them to a total artwork. Although there are similarities between his work and the Western and Muscovite conceptual art Schumow clearly leaves the original subjects behind and engages in questions of human warmth and comfort. Contrary to the well-known Russian conceptualist Ilya Kabakov, who works with existential questions of the human and artist’s existence in a totalitarian state, Schumow focuses on the cultural memories and findings of the individual being beyond political systems. He distances himself from the active, rational discussion that conceptual art is calling for and offers instead emotional perceptible spaces full of intimacy and mysticism.
‘Everything is Art’
Schumow abandons consciously adhesive tapes, cheap cardboards or coarse wooden constructions as used in conceptual art or ‘Arte povera’. Instead he uses golden or highly decorated objects and originals to create proximity, abundance and richness. He doesn’t create any pieces of art but collects left-overs and points directly towards lost truths out of any momentary worth. The individual experience of the observer and reference to Schumow’s objects and his world come to pass on a human level beyond civilisation and politics.
The project-room ‘Ehegraben’ offers the perfect space for Schumow. Through a long and narrow corridor the spectator enters into another world, detached from the outer world, where one meets a shrine of personal memorabilia. Individual objects of Schumow become common, past becomes timeless and everyday and existential matters merge.
Aleksandr Schumow was born in Russia and studied History of Art at the Lomonosow University, Moscow where he was greatly influenced by Russian artist Kasimir Malewitsch and his Suprematism. Schumow lives and works in Zurich and Moscow as an artist and curator and was the publisher of the Moscovite art magazine ‘Supremus’. In 2003 his photographic work was shown in ‘eyemachine’ for the first time in Zurich. His installation ‘Kabinett Supremus’ was recently presented in the exhibition ‘I believe’ (Veryu), curated by Oleg Kulik as part of the Moscow Biennale 2007.
Schumow arranges everyday objects with own photographs and composes them to a total artwork. Although there are similarities between his work and the Western and Muscovite conceptual art Schumow clearly leaves the original subjects behind and engages in questions of human warmth and comfort. Contrary to the well-known Russian conceptualist Ilya Kabakov, who works with existential questions of the human and artist’s existence in a totalitarian state, Schumow focuses on the cultural memories and findings of the individual being beyond political systems. He distances himself from the active, rational discussion that conceptual art is calling for and offers instead emotional perceptible spaces full of intimacy and mysticism.
‘Everything is Art’
Schumow abandons consciously adhesive tapes, cheap cardboards or coarse wooden constructions as used in conceptual art or ‘Arte povera’. Instead he uses golden or highly decorated objects and originals to create proximity, abundance and richness. He doesn’t create any pieces of art but collects left-overs and points directly towards lost truths out of any momentary worth. The individual experience of the observer and reference to Schumow’s objects and his world come to pass on a human level beyond civilisation and politics.
The project-room ‘Ehegraben’ offers the perfect space for Schumow. Through a long and narrow corridor the spectator enters into another world, detached from the outer world, where one meets a shrine of personal memorabilia. Individual objects of Schumow become common, past becomes timeless and everyday and existential matters merge.
Aleksandr Schumow was born in Russia and studied History of Art at the Lomonosow University, Moscow where he was greatly influenced by Russian artist Kasimir Malewitsch and his Suprematism. Schumow lives and works in Zurich and Moscow as an artist and curator and was the publisher of the Moscovite art magazine ‘Supremus’. In 2003 his photographic work was shown in ‘eyemachine’ for the first time in Zurich. His installation ‘Kabinett Supremus’ was recently presented in the exhibition ‘I believe’ (Veryu), curated by Oleg Kulik as part of the Moscow Biennale 2007.
