Peter Belyi at Daneyal Mahmood Gallery, New York, 19 Jun - 31 Jul

Exhibition Description:

Modellatura, which generally included an ideal vision of the future, was an extremely popular genre during the 1920s, an age of grand utopias. Not only did artists invest time and energy in creating models of future cities, but conceived their own artworks as indicators for potential technical projects.

Peter Belyi's "memorial modelling," based on the popular 1920's genre of Modellatura, which generally included and ideal vision of the future, casts its gaze into the past, to the 1960s and 1970s, a period that saw the existence of one of the last utopian expressions of our era.

The artist's intent is to use this "new" genre of representation to search for one of the paradigms of humanity: hope in the future produced by disillusionment with the past.

Description:

Image: Pinocchio’s Library, found wood, 10’ H x 9” x 9”, 2008

The wooden puppet Pinocchio's architect was obsessed with grandiose projects through which he hopes to transform the world, as well as an indissoluble deposit of utopian ideology present in each and every one of us.

Like its hero, Pinocchio's Library is made of wood, with books that cannot be opened, being the solid marker stones of useless knowledge, inaccessible and impossible to consult ever again, a memorial to utopia itself.

Yet Pinocchio's Library is rife with the hopes of each one of us and above all, that one day the wooden puppet will be transformed into a real child.

Peter Belyi was born in 1971 in Leningrad (today St. Petersburg), where he continues to live and work. He has exhibited in numerous solo and group shows internationally. His work is resident in some significant permanent public collections.

Full Contact Details:

DANEYAL MAHMOOD GALLERY
511 WEST 25 ST, 3FL
NEW YORK CITY 10001
phone: 212 675 2966
Tues.-Sat. 11am to 6pm