The term “elision” in linguistics is a reduction of a sound in a word or a phrase in order to ease the pronunciation for the speaker. In the name of this exhibition, “elisions” are the symbol of the reduction of entire layers of cultural heritage from people’s memory. The “Elisions” project originated 4 years ago, when the artist visited Pompeii and decided to write a book about Pompeian pictorial art influence on European art. Pompeii, in the artist’s lexicon, is a metaphor of any culture’s ruins. The book “Message in Painting” came out of his visit to the great ruins and is another attempt to address the origins of the lost glorious art there. The question then arose: what will remain of present-day Pompeii for generations of the future? 

The project is an attempt to see modern culture through the lens of the ruins, which is comparable to an archeologist’s “breakthrough”. There in emerging a bond with the archeology of culture which Valeriy Koshlyakov is so assertively talking about, when monuments are opening right before our very eyes. 

Here every fragment, every panel, every ruin is a part of the unified remains of this culture. 

A catalogue confined to the exhibition has been published by the Museum in which the largest collection of Valery Koshlyakov works is represented. It includes articles of Danilo Ekkher, Alexandra Obukhova, Marco Filoni, Andrey Erofeev, Mikhail Dmitriev, Ekaterina Andreeva, Vitaly Patsyukov, etc. Along with an interview with Jean-Hubert Martin and Olga Golovanova-Koshlyakova.

Along with the wall text, in our shop you can find the book “Message in Painting” which was written by the artist and became the key to the whole installation “Elisions.”