A personal exhibition of Anatoly Shmuel Shelest, an artist known and, at the same time, mysterious: a special manner of artistic expression, Shelest’s » secret writing «, in which revealed as much as hidden, always evokes in the audience many of their own associations.
The Jewish theme occupies a special place in the work of Anatoly Shmuel Shelest. When they say «the Jewish theme», the memory of many times seen pictures appear: Jews dancing with a Torah scroll; a sad galut Jew, bending diligently over a book, etc.
However, as one of the curators of the exhibition, Marina Genkina, notes, these templates have nothing to do with Shelest’s work. His works are not about copying reality, but transforming it into almost or completely symbolic images . For Shelest, Jewry and Judaism is an all-embracing Absolute, where there is no border between the past and the present: everything happens now and here.
As for the visual means, the artist’s arsenal is practically limitless. Anatoly Shmuel Shelest works in painting, monotype, creates graphic installations using materials and tools that are most suitable for the embodiment of certain meanings: from an «iron brush» (a spring mounted on a handle) to a special comb, from a matting and printing ink to glue and potassium permanganate.
Shelest’s works of different years, collected in a very compact hall, create the effect of an expandable space — each work appears as a kind of «gate» through which the viewer enters another dimension.
The exhibition will run until October 15 (from 15.00 to 20.00, excluding holidays).
