Adversary and the Void
Blank Page is the title of Serhiy Anufriyev’s exhibit at the Alipiy Gallery, so much a chamber as to verge on almost complete obscurity. Indeed, with slide projections plus nine photos displayed at a miniature gallery one has a hard time locating in a doorway of a block of apartments. The scope is not large, mildly speaking. However, such conceptual (a magical word) obscurity is precisely what Anufriyev is after. No, he does not want to remain unnoticed, of course, as the author of a definite creative product; here obscurity is rather one of the characteristics. Nor was it a coincidence that the famous Medical Hermeneutics group (Anufriyev was among its founding and most active members) sent Moscow astir in the late 1980s with its installations and actions, adopting Empty Canon as its key notion.
Void, obscurity, keeping almost out of public sight and away from mass interest – precisely this tactic adopted by the hermeneutic artists is well mastered by Anufriyev. Blank Page is not even a gesture, not an effective action meant to attract attention. Rather, it is a reserved artistic statement, a carefully worded and softly spoken phrase. It has its own notional impulse and dramaturgy.
First, the very object of whiteness – or void, if you will – is begotten. The slide projector casts a shapeless spot of light, like a frozen patch of sunlight on the floor. Then there is an identically shaped spot which is practically invisible yet with its definite contours against a slightly less white backdrop. With each photo the backdrop is filled with color, becoming increasingly real, becoming part of the world with familiar objects and contours. Yet the blank spot remains intact, in the same place. It is impenetrable. Now we can see an easily identifiable industrial landscape. Some service lines and buildings, a combination of vertical and horizontal structures, a dense skyline, yet the integrity of the picture shows a glaring gap, and the blankness does not intrude on this world; it is inherently there, born of the clot of light.
In reality, where everything must have a meaning, this whiteness means nothing except itself. In the expression built by Anufriyev, this central character can be any which way you like. It could be a UFO, ecological safety, or that trite metaphysical interpretation: we have ten impressions, meaning a Zen Buddhist count of the distance to that same blissful void. All such conceptions would be correct in their own ways, yet everything would remain on the verge of that spot, standing no chance to get inside, because there is no need for that depth whatsoever, because there is no depth. There is just that blissful void which is not imposed on anyone, with Anufriyev the Adversary hovering above like an ever vigilant guard.
