Republica Moldova

“It is beautiful this rusty metal”, - says Nikolai. “It isn’t worse than gold or precious stones. The nature made the beauty. But everyone told me to paint my works. I can understand my colleagues. They work for instance with stone and make masterpieces for ages. Our works are an ironical view of the Soviet time. We hoped the nature would do its work, the metal would become rusty and all the objects perish. We did not want to interfere in life of our arrangement.”

This is the only way for “The Bureaucracy”, “The Pastor Looking Out”, “The Conformism” to vanish. These are the names of the first exposition “The Rust”. Is it irony again? Metal becomes rusty very slowly, so all the works are in a good condition. “The Evil of Society” as newspaper says does not vanish. Maybe it is good, that sculptures have not been broken yet. Somebody said: “Art is long> life is short.” These metal works are historical monuments now.

The second exhibition was made by Nikolai himself. He has been working from 1996 till 2002. This arrange¬ment is called simply “The 20th Century”. The works are complicated: “The Purgatory”, “The Conformism-2″, “The Kiss of Picasso”, “A Time to Gather Stones Together” and others. There are 23 works on the territory in front of the studios.
People offered Nikolai to buy several of his works but he refused. He says that space from the point of view of the modeling will be imperfect. Though, he sold two sculp¬tures: “Teleportation” and “Basket” to Soros Foundation. Costumers don’t ask the author to make something like the works they see but they want to buy those works that are on “The Forked Stick of Sculeanca”. It is not a surprise! Where can you find such things?