ABOUT THE WORK
The object ‘Wind' is an enlarged version of the ‘kids' sculptures, as the author himself calls them. A series of works is dedicated to his daughter Ulyana and has been a constant feature in the artist’s oeuvre since her birth. This is a kind of porcelain diary, capturing various stages as the little girl grows up, and the memorable events associated with her: favourite toys, first steps and childhood friendship. Here she is already racing on a balance bike — with a smile, with laughter and the wind in her hair, and the artist, trying not to miss a single moment, consciously becomes a participant in the race as time steadily slips away.
Thanks to Rodion Artamonov’s touching and poetic narration, awakened memories prompt the viewer to embark on a journey into the fairy-tale world of childhood.

ABOUT THE WORK
Birds from the new project ‘BIRDWATCHING' have now joined the inhabitants of artist Andrey Lublinsky’s world of fantasy. Here this superform is an ordinary bird-whistle from the arsenal of ‘folk crafts'. The ritual instrument, which eventually became a children’s plaything and is now turned into a kind of artefact, drew the artist’s attention for its conciseness and minimalist simplicity. Lublinsky, in his characteristic manner, decomposes this image to the simplest basic forms and reassembles it.
In this project the author makes a choice in favour of pure combinations. So the colour scheme of the object created specifically for the ‘Here and Now' project is a monochrome classic of black and white, harmoniously diluted with active yellow. Using this demonstratively bright avian colouring, the manifestation and definiteness of a new form is achieved.

ABOUT THE WORK
A sundial is a device for measuring time by the length of a shadow, already in use for thousands of years. The simple form accumulating natural resources, practicality and also symbolism makes it possible to imbue the object with additional meanings.
In his new installation Vladimir Chernyshev reinterprets this model. The dial is made of tar, a material associated with the absorption and fluidity of related materials — oil and plastic. This resulting base is comparable to a black hole, from which a steel gnomon emerges, modified under the influence of the environment. The clock refers to a shift and even a hiatus in time, while never losing its functionality and always clearly counting the minutes.
Minimalist artistic solutions hint at a violation of the topological properties of time: linearity and one-dimensionality collide with dialectics and anachronism. Working with the fourth dimension, the author polarizes the space in the courtyard of the Museum of Moscow — the axis ‘here and now' and the axis-portal, referring to an unrealized past or an impossible future.

ABOUT THE WORK
Danila Pilit focuses on the search for basic settings of the world and the surrounding reality in his work. Correspondingly the subjects of his authorial research and sources of inspiration are the elements: the archetypes of nature, northern folk culture and tradition.
As part of the ‘Here and Now '23' festival the artist reflects on a new art object created specifically for the Moskvich Cultural Centre from the point of view of ‘vernacularity' — relevance, authenticity, handicraft and coincidental aesthetics, as if made by a child. In search of a suitable visual synonym for creative energy, its strength and multi-directionality, chaos and unpredictability, the author chose the image of a river surrounded by a white hummock — the pile of ice floes and their fragments often formed in northern reservoirs as the result of natural pressure and ice compression. Using wood to interpret this ‘meta-element', Danila conceptualises it as the pure poetics of the nature of art.

ABOUT THE WORK
In this project Anastasia Ryzhikova examines the subtle sense of the future of a human being, who assumes countless different states when passing through time. The artist captures the synchronous versatility of choice.
Every day, the moment we wake up, our consciousness is set in motion, revealing an immense variety of options for the development of history. These resolutions further construct our self-portrait, and each time they simultaneously provoke the emergence of new chains of unique events.
The work is based on a serious authorial analysis of not only the laws of the quantum world, but also the metaphorical temporal patterns of that most important representative of the Russian avant-garde, Velimir Khlebnikov. The poet-predictor, known as an explorer of the ‘continents of time', glorifies in his writings ‘a land … where time blossoms like the bird cherry and moves like a piston, where a superhuman in a carpenter’s apron saws time into boards and like a turner of wood can shape his own tomorrow'. He strives to find a parallel, or perhaps perpendicular dimension, where a person can rise to such a height in order to simultaneously observe the past, present and future — this is what he sees as the nature and meaning of creativity.
These ideas are strikingly refracted through 365 mirrors in the artist’s object, which was inspired by the forms of constructivism.

ABOUT THE WORK
Wind scattered the petals.
Our meeting place.
Traditionally every decorative mural painter had his own path to follow — that is, a very specific route to the same places. By a happy coincidence Moscow has become one such destination point for this master from the Urals. Only Krasil Makar no longer paints izbas, he now focuses on the space of the city, using large-scale sculptural forms.
In his work the artist uses individual elements, protoforms, taken from the Ural daubing technique — painting in one brushstroke, with the simultaneous application of white paint with coloured pigment on the sides of the brush. The resulting alphabet of ‘berries', ‘petals', ‘leaves' and ‘postscripts' served as the basis for the author’s figurative language. Makar accompanies his works with a brief poetic commentary, a hint to the story hidden in the work.
A new object by the artist, ‘Cosmoromashka', has been installed next to the All-Russian Decorative Art Museum as part of the ‘Here and Now' festival. This spatial composition combining the vibrations of bright colours and soft, smooth forms becomes the dominant feature of the chosen location. The work seems to reference fortune telling on flower petals. However, the process may have been interrupted, as some of the petals remained untouched. The spectator can become that main character by continuing the count.

ABOUT THE WORK
Today Danilovskaya Manufactory is a dynamic developed area with high-rise residential complexes and a modern business district, located on the territory of a once powerful industrial centre. Only a few centuries ago these places were quiet green suburbs near the settlement that evolved around the Danilovsky Monastery. Hence the timeless dichotomy of ‘man-nature' that the artist establishes in creating her oeuvre seems especially significant. ‘Bouquet of Wild Flowers' reminds us how important it is to care for nature and live in harmony with it, despite the environment of an eternally sleepless metropolis. By contrasting and entering into dialogue with the modern landscape, this work provides the viewer with a unique opportunity to step aside from the hustle and bustle of the city, to smile and remember a carefree childhood.
The elements of this bouquet — flowers and a worm crawling between them — are depicted in a deliberately conventional and naïve manner, like a drawing. The author’s whimsical images, embedded in the surrounding urban environment, serve as an excellent reason to stop, exhale and start fantasising anew.

ABOUT THE WORK
Many artists are enthused by the attempt to perceive and comprehend processes that contribute to a flash of enchanting inspiration. However, in the history of aesthetic thought this phenomenon is seen from an irrationalist position, and the sacred moment itself is none other than a special encounter of the creator with the world, when the truth is revealed and a statement expressed.
In pursuit of this elusive entity, El Kartoon has tried to capture the moment of revelation — the emergence of a new idea. This is a feeling, but also an absolute conviction, an unexpected understanding of the future work: "Many factors converge at one point — a key moment. This is the starting point for further actions." The object created for the ‘Here and Now' festival disassembles into many coloured and shaped elements, and the chaotic jumble of details is reintegrated in a coherent image from only one specific angle.
The author finds subjects for his works by observing the surrounding reality. His hero is the simple man. And the signature ‘digital lace' pattern forms an illustration of our era, a reference to the technology that permeates modern society. Present in almost all of the artist’s works, it serves either as a background — a pixel glitch, or as a continuation of the character itself, located on the borderline between the real and virtual.

ABOUT THE WORK
David Chkotua’s sculptural composition ‘Bioforms', which appeared as part of the ‘Here and Now' festival, represents a family of fantastic creatures created under the combined impression of various representatives of flora and fauna. So we are dealing either with forms of new life, or, on the contrary, with figures referring back to prehistoric times. The author turns to what he has seen in the environment — he transforms real images, gets rid of characteristic details, and constructs an original generalisation.
"Most often the form of the future sculpture comes to mind almost complete," the artist says. However, in search of the ideal embodiment, he experiments with diverse materials, textures and colours. And in this case, the dominance of interpretations is hard to avoid. Obsessed with the bustle of everyday life, modern man is deprived of the opportunity to easily feel that pure uncontrollable emotion of admiration for nature and its creatures. This feeling is involuntary: it is difficult to have no such feeling, but it is also something difficult to induce on purpose. Nevertheless, such poetic, artistic statements provoke us to stop awhile and let our imagination run wild.

ABOUT THE WORK
The natural order is no more primitive than the social order: animals have a complex language; they are capable of play and can deftly wield tools. Perhaps even a phone.
In contemporary culture the booth is a traditional place for communication between two worlds and, moreover, a method of teleportation: ‘Guest from the Future', ‘The Matrix', ‘World on the Wire', ‘Call'. It is through this portal that other entities are able to penetrate our reality in order to destroy the illusion of the existence of these parallel universes. During a telephone conversation the interlocutors remain invisible to each other, and communication is carried out exclusively through the auditory channel. Accordingly, the joint work of memory and imagination is able to construct an unobservable image of the interlocutor. Including the most fantastic one.
Centaurian entities made of natural materials — clay, wood and tow, are psychologised and individualised, their character is clearly visible. Instead of being presented in a sterile white gallery cube, they are integrated into a living street space, and this encourages viewers to interact with them. The very title of the work contains the contrast of ‘human-constructed' and ‘natural-organic', and the phone call becomes a wake-up call.

ABOUT THE WORK
For Evgenia Nozhkina fabric is not just a material, but literally a repository that carefully preserves our memories and emotions: a child’s baby blanket, a tablecloth used exclusively for family celebrations, a father’s favourite shirt, a graduation dress… All these simple utilitarian objects turn into artefacts — we keep them for years and can’t bring ourselves to throw them away. But as the author’s long-term practice shows, people are happy to give these fabrics to the artist and then follow the destiny of art objects that retain a fragment of their own lives.
The history of a city consists of the stories of its inhabitants. The author is impressed by the possibility of creating a generalised portrait that is also the most complete iteration. Hence this work specially constructed for the ‘Here and Now' festival contains a sixty-year history of Voronezh. The piece repurposes not only fabrics from the artist’s personal wardrobe or those collected during ten years working at the Voronezh House of Actors, but also items from her family or friends, as well as materials donated to Evgenia by participants in the YOUR VINTAGE Festival and the Sobirator Eco-Centre, the Accent Salon and various production facilities specialising in tailored sportswear and individual orders. The undeniable advantage of fabrics lies in the variety of textures and shades, exceeding the number of combinations with paints.
The image of fire is not accidental: according to the author it is a symbol of unification between completely different people and their aspirations, between different types of art and their orientation.

ABOUT THE WORK
The spatial composition created during Yaroslav Borodin’s participatory performance on 18 and 19 December 2023 represents the author’s experience and reasoning about the surrounding reality and, globally, about man. Such poetic reflection is largely dictated by the genius loci which most clearly reflects the historical perspective.
This work consists of seven ‘chapters' devoted, in the artist’s opinion, to key stages in the development of the world and transformation of philosophical thought (from the point of view of the manifestation and cognition of being). The author tried to illustrate transition from the past to the present and record the changes taking place in society.
The first image is the birth of the world. This expressive process is metaphorically expressed in the form of a pillar with fragments from the faces of newborn children. The happiness of a new beginning is sealed in their smiles. Exciting experiences are reflected in the second sculpture, which emphasises the idea of emotional knowledge of the world — delight and surprise. According to the artist, this is the period of antiquity — a time of sensory connection with reality. Next we see a half-face of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus, who advocated the attainment of a happy (eudaimonic) and tranquil life, peace and freedom from fear. The central ideas of his philosophy are carved in the second part of the work. The fourth image, a crumbling Ionic column to symbolise collapsing borders, marks the transition to modern times, the period of rationalism. This idea continues to develop in the next two compositions, where the perspective is inverted 180 degrees and the form mirrors the initially determined imagery. The seventh and final sculpture focuses on the very simple idea that everything in this world has a tendency to change and pass with time.