«The Life of Hydrocarbons». Photo report on the exhibition
The garden of time. Exhibition photo report
The garden of time. General view.
From March, 10th till March, 13th «Fashion for landscape» exhibition was held in Crocus Expo Exhibition Center, Moscow within the frames of HOUSE AND GARDEN Moscow garden show. There are a lot of landscape designers among my friends. They are able to create beautiful gardens and know everything about plants. Perhaps, I was not quite sober when, fallen under their influence, I dared to have a part it the exhibition. At that moment I thought that the fact that I only make sundials and am not able to discriminate between a birch tree and a currant bush is not an obstacle worthy of special consideration to a real macho like me. I bravely accepted their kind invitation an decided to create a conceptual garden named «Garden of the time». Were I in my right mind, the idea that any garden should have plants might have come to my mind not a week before the exhibition start but much earlier.
Crocus Expo Exhibition Center
It was too late to negotiate with plantsuppliers. So I decided to create plants with my own hands. As far as I know, the nearest approved fact of plants creation is described in the Bible. Nevertheless, to create a carrot seemed to be the easiest way. Almost daily I see it in my soup.
The set of objects named «The Life of hydrocarbonates» I cut out of limestone.
However, carried away with the process, I decided to create absolutely new, hitherto unknown, plant species. As a result I created a set of five objects and named it «The Life of hydrocarbonates». Let it be.
Setting up sceneries was the second step. I used a photo that I made last year through the window of my workshop as one of them. I had it printed in dimensions 2,5 x 4,0 m and decorated with a passage from Publius Ovidius Naso «Seasons change through continuous movement». For the smaller (2,5 x 2,0 m) scenery, I used a fragment of a 17th century engraving. It shows a woman holding a diptych sundial in her hand. Artists of the 17th century were fine judges of female beauty. So I am lucky to discover this engraving by an unknown artist of the 17th century.
View from my workshop window.
A woman of the 17th century holds a sundial in her hand and shows that she rules not only the time but life and death too.
The scenery. A woman does the same as at the previous picture, but on the background of the universe. A bright polished sundial made by me pretends to decorate the universe.
Then in order to mark the center of the composition, I have installed a sundial on the left side of the area. Not so long ago I had an occasion to make sundials to commemorate the great scientists of the past.
It's been a long time since I've been eager to make a sundial reminding of the great English mathematician Thomas Tompion. The exhibition offered me a good opportunity to do this. Thomas Tompion made scientific instruments and sundials. But in Russian museums we have no one of them. Thus, let at least a device made after him bear his name in this country.
At the west edge of the gnomon, the year of birth of Thomas Tompion is etched.
At the north part of the dial I have etched «Aleksandr Boldyrev to the memory of Thomas Tompion, London".
At the east edge of gnomon, figures 2010 are etched.
My composition still looked dead and uncompleted. In order to animate it, I have layed out some stone spheres on the floor representing planets. Besides, I asked my friend Oksana to lend me a few butterfliesof glass. Oksana is a landscape designer but she likes mosaic and stained glass technique very much. (dekorsad.ru).She has given me 30 butterflies and instructed me strictly to sell all of them otherwise she would force me to eat each one of unsold glass insects.
Stained glass butterflies decorate my stone plants.
The absolute majority of landscape designers in Russia are women. I do not know the cause of the fact. But I know for certain that I like their company. I meat them one or two times a year at the exhibitions, and it is always very interesting to learn new expositions they bring.
Svetlana (landy-art.ru) has created a true mow. Almost each visitor of the exhibition has rolled about on it. And Svetlana herself looks delightful.
Landscape designer Svetlana on her mow.
A young architect Julia comes to Moscow from a far distant town Saratov in order to win the first prize. Her plan is to win at least two first prizes a year. This winter she became crazy about furniture. This is why she has decorated her garden with a divan looking like nothing else in the world.
A young architect Julia has made these divans with her own hands.
Architects Elena and Julia (mother and daughter) have created a garden named «The sublimation of space». But I think that they look better than the garden. At least they more correspond to the name «The sublimation of space»than their garden
Architects Elena and Julia at the background of their garden.
The garden made by landscape designer Irina (landdesign.org.ru) is named «Courtesy visit». Here she is, waiting for visitors.
Landscape designer Irina in her «Courtesy visit» garden.
Instead of a garden my friend Jury and his friends bikers nave brought a bike made of rusted parts of some farming mechanism.
On his calling card Jury calls himself a Creator.Well, Bikers know how to prove they are right.
I think that the exhibition was successful to me. But butterfly selling was not successful from the beginning to the end. Probably, the reason is that I have no appropriate experience in selling insects. (Who of us has experience in this field?). In spite of the threat to be forced to eat all unsold goods I have managed to sell only two butterflies. I did my best.
Dr. Aleksandr M. Boldyrev sells insects down on his knees in front of a customer.
At the end of the last day I made a feeble attempt to sell myself. As compared to me, butterflies should be considered as goods of popular demand. Nobody was interested in buying a sundial maker.
