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TALES OF THE GOLDEN APPLES

The Main Thing is to Not Repeat Oneself

Иң мөһиме - кабатланмау

Context

Launch of open workshops and art residence in Almetyevsk

Process

Collaboration with local residents and creation of a bilingual mural about the torments of creativity

Author

Vladimir Abikh (St. Petersburg, Russia)

Address

4a Avtomobilistov Street

TALES OF THE GOLDEN APPLES

Context

The city's first open workshops and art residence where town residents will engage in art, share experience and work with the rare Chupaev stone.

In 2023, open workshops were launched in Almetyevsk. Town residents can freely engage in painting and graphic arts, sculpture and ceramics, create mosaics and work with metals. The workshop premises will host exhibitions, cultural events and master classes for the town residents and guests, as well as an art residence for professional artists, who can stay there provided they create an art object for Almetyevsk.

In addition, here one can learn how to work with a rare variety of local rock – Chupaev stone, used to create bas-reliefs for building decoration and to build the first two-story buildings in Almetyevsk in the 1950s.

The building that houses the workshops was also built using Chupaev stone in the 1960s. It was used as a warehouse until recently, but in 2022 it received a new life. It is now one of the main cultural centers in Almetyevsk.

The facade displays the work by Vladimir Abikh «The Main Thing is not to Repeat Oneself». This is the first mural created in co-authorship with the workshop residents in both Russian and Tatar languages and related directly to the theme of creativity. The artist reflects on the issues of uniqueness, predictability and repetition – problems that every artist encounters. The mural in Almetyevsk is part of an original series «The Main Thing is not to Repeat Oneself». The artist creates similar images that appear in different cities, on walls and canvases in an unaltered form and repeat themselves.

Chupaev's stone carving. Bas-reliefs created by the sculptor Pavel Ignatiev (St. Petersburg) especially for the Open Workshops.

View of the building before the launch of the Open Workshops and its art residence.

In 2023, open workshops were launched in Almetyevsk. Town residents can freely engage in painting and graphic arts, sculpture and ceramics, create mosaics and work with metals. The workshop premises will host exhibitions, cultural events and master classes for the town residents and guests, as well as an art residence for professional artists, who can stay there provided they create an art object for Almetyevsk.

In addition, here one can learn how to work with a rare variety of local rock – Chupaev stone, used to create bas-reliefs for building decoration and to build the first two-story buildings in Almetyevsk in the 1950s.

Chupaev's stone carving. Bas-reliefs created by the sculptor Pavel Ignatiev (St. Petersburg) especially for the Open Workshops.

The building that houses the workshops was also built using Chupaev stone in the 1960s. It was used as a warehouse until recently, but in 2022 it received a new life. It is now one of the main cultural centers in Almetyevsk.

The facade displays the work by Vladimir Abikh «The Main Thing is not to Repeat Oneself». This is the first mural created in co-authorship with the workshop residents in both Russian and Tatar languages and related directly to the theme of creativity. The artist reflects on the issues of uniqueness, predictability and repetition – problems that every artist encounters. The mural in Almetyevsk is part of an original series «The Main Thing is not to Repeat Oneself».The artist creates similar images that appear in different cities, on walls and canvases in an unaltered form and repeat themselves.

View of the building before the launch of the Open Workshops and its art residence.

«In my opinion, repetitiveness is a sensitive subject for everyone today. On the one hand, the artist's style must always be recognizable and it's unavoidable. But on the other hand, abusing the same techniques makes the artist too predictable, ordinary, «digestible.» The task becomes rather contradictory: to repeat yourself without repeating yourself – and my work is just about that.

There is never too much recursiveness – repeating one phrase within one work is not enough for me, I repeat the work itself, but each time in a different way, in different languages and with different distortion. It becomes a repetition of the work on non-repeatability, which consists of a repetitive text, which is simultaneously repeated and not repeated, like the work itself.»

Vladimir Abikh

Street artist, participant of the Tales of Golden Apples public art program

Process

Art form: mural
Style: conceptualism
Technique: bilingual text replicated on different surfaces
Material: facade paint

Ital. Mural — wall

Monumental wall painting created on a faсade or a blank wall of a building or any other urban architectural objects.

Almetyevsk Open Workshops residents – town dwellers selected through a competition, participated in the creation of the mural. They are self-taught artists who work in various creative professions and people seeking to master these professions. They can take advantage of the space, tools and materials that the workshops provide to everyone for free – and contribute to the development of culture in Almetyevsk.

Daniil Sigachev

Master carpenter, graduate of the Almetyevsk art school #1

Inna Khannanova

Pottery enthusiast

Sergey Lepyatskiy

Calligraphist, resident of the Karakuz festival and participant of the Almet Media Lab

Ninel Minnakhametova

Sculptor

Anna Gibadullina

Decorative artist, founder of the Cleverroom creative studio

Maria Fedorova

Artist

Daniil Sigachev

Master carpenter, graduate of the Almetyevsk art school #1

Inna Khannanova

Pottery enthusiast

Sergey Lepyatskiy

Calligraphist, resident of the Karakuz festival and participant of the Almet Media Lab

Ninel Minnakhametova

Sculptor

Anna Gibadullina

Decorative artist, founder of the Cleverroom creative studio

Maria Fedorova

Artist

«The creation of open workshops is a logical and final step that grounds the Tales of the Golden Apples public art program and continues it by the efforts of the residents, for whom it was originally created in 2017. It is symbolic that the mural on the workshop building façade was created with the participation of its future residents and regular visitors, while the work itself reflects on the role of the author and what constitutes the torments of creativity.»

Polina Yozh

Curator of the Tales of the Golden Apples public art program

Author

«An ironic textual work that transforms reading into a performative act reproduces itself. On the one hand, we see a contradiction between form and content, but since the text is distorted and is read at different times, it is no longer the same text, but a different one every time.»

Vladimir Abikh (St. Petersburg, Russia)

Artist

Vladimir Abikh is a street artist who exists between disciplines, techniques and cities. Five-time Kuryokhin Prize nominee, participant of the Ural Industrial Biennale (2015) and the Russian Contemporary Art Triennial (2020), with solo exhibitions from Yekaterinburg to Salzburg and Chengdu. The artist's mural The Main Thing is not to Repeat Oneself in Almetyevsk connects this small industrial town with global cultural centers.

The artist's works in various Russian cities, including works from the series «The Main Thing is not to Repeat Oneself».

Vladimir Abikh is a street artist who exists between disciplines, techniques and cities. Five-time Kuryokhin Prize nominee, participant of the Ural Industrial Biennale (2015) and the Russian Contemporary Art Triennial (2020), with solo exhibitions from Yekaterinburg to Salzburg and Chengdu. The artist's mural The Main Thing is not to Repeat Oneself in Almetyevsk connects this small industrial town with global cultural centers.

The artist's works in various Russian cities, including works from the series «The Main Thing is not to Repeat Oneself».

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