Sergei Shutov’s biography incorporates a broad spectrum of creative experiments, from psychedelic new wave painting to multimedia installations and from avant‑garde experiments with video art to sound environments. The 7th Youth Exhibition, friendships with the “New Artists,” rave culture and VJing in the first clubs (and featuring on the cover of Ptyuch magazine), the squat in Furmanny Pereulok, the film Assa, concerts with Pop‑Mekhanika, inserts for Pirate Television, exhibitions across the world, and showing in the Russian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale are only a tiny part of the typhoon of new Russian culture of which Shutov was at the center.
Shutov’s 1984 work on paper shown here is from the period when he was involved in working with metal. The sheet features a monochrome schematic composition depicting an exchange of energy and is inspired by the artist’s lifelong interest in science, technocracy, and eastern esoterica.
At that time Shutov also began to study the theoretical aspects of intaglio printing. Since he had no access to high‑tech equipment, the artist used his own method of working with the material, applying a thick layer of white enamel to high density paper and, once it was dry, using needles to make an image of various depths, sometimes piercing the layer of enamel. The last stage was the addition of oil paint applied with the edge of the palm and the completion of the composition. Unlike editioned prints, this labor‑intensive technique was used to make a single work. This sheet is one of around twenty unique works.
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