'Danger Zone'

Download Release

May 2nd - June 2nd, 2007

Daneyal Mahmood Gallery is pleased to present Peter Belyi’s New York debut. Danger Zone was last realized by Belyi at Modus R. Russian Formalism Today (Art Basel Miami, 2006).

"Building a model is usually synonymous with the ideas of progress and creation. While modeling is one of the most important elements of utopian periods, Peter Belyi’s Danger Zone does not address the future. It addresses the past and specifically, the 1970’s – a decade of mass housing construction in the Soviet Union and the last gasp of Utopian impulses. The framework of apartment blocks creates the impression of a fragile construction, which is either still awaiting completion or has deliberately been left to crumble. It is up to the viewer to guess what is the reason for this destruction – war, neglect or a combination of both."

(Olesya Turkina, excerpted from Modus R. Russian Formalism Today catalogue)

In Danger Zone, Belyi assumes the role of a social barometer. By focusing on the Russian landscape and Soviet ruins he provides a starting point for a discussion on the nature of our history; in particular notions of authority, dictatorship and their relation to society. Through these architectural models, Belyi translates the concept of a dictatorship into an aesthetic form. Belyi states that the nature of today's architecture and the temporariness that is instilled in it, is the symbol of a society living in a disposable culture.

The artist brings forth ideas regarding the Soviet Apocalypse, the empire’s heritage, waste from the megapolis, the crisis of remaking monuments (ideological waste) and disposable towns. In this installation Belyi deliberately degrades the traditional subject of romantic ruins to the form of technical, post-industrial ruins. His chosen material is plasterboard, itself inherently disposable, intended for single use, something only for the present. After the exhibition such an object can only be broken to pieces and thrown away, fully reflecting the principle that lies behind contemporary architecture - a construction that foresees no re-use. Thus, what we see appears to be an old model with lost details, covered in cracked paint and partially destroyed. Standard-plan buildings that were intended to make life modern, rational and just - prove to be a remnant for looking only to the here-and-now. The wretchedness and rickety nature of these ruins are to be the unnatural mark left by the current state of society.

Although the artist deals with a memory of the Soviet culture, one cannot avoid bringing the present into the equation. Our consciousness is being bombarded daily with images of destruction from war zones. Demolished architectural forms become symbols of power, domination and hopelessness.