Levashovsky Bread Factory was built in the early 1930s to satisfy the city’s rapidly growing demand for bread. Moreover, they sought to help women quit some of the housework. In the very heart of such factories, there usually was a round oven, in which fire worked for the good of Soviet citizens. Today, there is a Star in the center of the bread factory’s boiler room. Its flames have nothing to do with the once practical function but has gained some spiritual sense, as now it casts light upon the thorny way of knowledge.
This Star is a character from the unique world made up by St. Petersburg based artist Fedor Hiroshige, who has initiated a dialogue with the heritage left by the Soviet Utopia. The bright gaze of the Star breaks open the solid narrative of the factory that has long become the memorial of Constructivism and reveals concealed alternative implications in its architectural concept. The premises of the bread factory that follow a sole layout resemble a temple, a Roman Pantheon or a Christian Cathedral, it is really hard to tell. It is this paradox, the sacral images found in the heritage of the culture full of irreligious ideology, that magnetized the artist, a well-known fighter with traditional dichotomies, which often turn out to be artificially implanted cultural constructs.
Hiroshige creates a Fata Morgana, in which stars from Soviet medals resemble a six-winged angel, a seraph, or a signal of Messiah’s birth. The process of education becomes something like a spiritual practice, and the bread factory starts to produce food for thought. This is every extramundane thing that was once dreamed of in everyday life, like in a movie about divas and ballerinas. One of such divas, the shero of Renata Litvinova’s STAR OF YOUR TIME insists that in a lapse of a hundred years only 2 great writers, 2 great poets, and 2 great actors are remembered, whereas the others are buried in oblivion. Who is the star of our time?
The exhibition was powered by Anna Nova Contemporary Art Gallery and masters Art School.
