Nikolay Koshelev. The Moon Pool. Archives 18+

The State Tretyakov Gallery, in collaboration with the Triumph Gallery, present Nikolay Koshelev’s solo exhibition, “The Moon Pool. Archives”. Nikolay Koshelev works with painting and graphics, and he also experiments with ceramics. The artist’s recent projects have been inspired by the aesthetics of Russian Symbolism. Broadly speaking, Koshelev addresses the artistic heritage of the World of Art Association. 

“The Moon Pool. Archives” presents the work of an early XX century fictitious artist, Alexander Zilverhof. The project’s narrative is focused on a theatrical production of Diaghilev’s Seasons that failed to be implemented. This defines both its multimedia nature and the system of symbols and images that are repeated and rhyme with each other, and refer to the aesthetics of the circle encompassed by the World of Art.
Alexander Zilverhof grew up in Germany in a family of Russian emigrants; he received a philological education and was interested in German Romanticism. He came to Russia in 1903 and met with the artists of “The Blue Rose” association. This meeting inspired Zilverhof to create a ballet production based on the concepts of the German playwright Heinrich von Kleist and fragments of his biography. The libretto was written by the artist. It tells the story of a girl who, in her search of peace, happens to be on the bank of a pond on a moonlit night, where she stays alone with her visions and gradually turns into one of them. The work on the production lasted until 1906 and was not completed. 

The archive of works by the fictitious artist presented in Nikolay Koshelev’s project includes approximately a hundred works; those are sketches of the scenery, fragments of scenography, a backdrop, ceramic casts of the characters, drawings, the libretto and other materials. 

Nikolay Koshelev was born in 1987 in Moscow. In 2010 he graduated with a degree in Monumental and Decorative Art from the Moscow Stroganov State Academy of Arts and Industry; in 2014 he completed a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts in the New York Academy of Arts. In 2014 the Dedalus Foundation nominated him for a program in Painting. 

Below are selections from the artist’s solo and group exhibitions: Loopback Dynamic Composition (Bahnhof Gallery, New York, 2020), Project 9 (Aeste Cambi Auction House, Milan, 2019), New Now (Phillips Auction House, New York, 2018, 2019), Cleaning (Lazy Mike Gallery, New York, 2017), Eis am Stiel (Marie von Papen Gallery, Frankfurt, 2017), Refshaleøen (Copenhagen, 2017), Der gestiefelte Kater (Marie von Papen Gallery, New York, 2016), 26 (Triumph Gallery, Moscow, 2016), The Fabergé Big Egg Hunt (Sotheby’s, New York, 2015). 

The artist’s works are in the collections of Leonid Blavatnik, the New York Academy of Arts, Riga Museum of Contemporary Art, Alfa Bank, Van Cleef & Arpels and others. Nikolay Koshelev lives and works in Moscow and New York. 

Сurator: Sofia Kovaleva
Exhibition architect: Ksenia Lukyanova

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