Erarta exhibition in Vyborg

The exhibition was part of the “Russia in Erarta” project series, designed to promote contemporary Russian art of the country’s various regions both in St. Petersburg at Erarta Museum and throughout the country itself. Minnenbaev’s exhibition was a first for Erarta in the city of Vyborg and his technique of using hand-made paper with deep, dark earthly tones fit in perfectly in the surroundings of ancient masonry. The “Atlanthropus” refers to the utopian engineering project which ahs arisen in Germany circa 1920s and involved building a dam in Gibraltar, draining the Mediterranean Sea and flooding Sahara, creating a new continent — Atlanthropus. As befits a utopia, it was assumed that Atlanthropus would become a flourishing garden, while Minnenbaev’s works show a more likely scenario — scorched landscapes and cracked earth, seen from the bird’s eye view. Another series of works of the exhibition was devoted to geoglyphs — giant drawings on the ground which can only be seen form the air. The pages in the form of reduced landscape documented a variety of maps created by the historical significance and magnitude of the cities of the world.

The works will now move on to London in November and will be featured in the “Ufalogiya. Contemporary Art of the Ufa Region” exhibition at the Erarta Gallery London.