Alexander Djikia
L A B Y R I N T H
or the story of the Minotaur


(sculpture, graphics, objects)

19. 11. 09 - 20. 12. 09

opening reception - November, 19 at 6 p.m.

A. PetrovichevššAlexander, is your passion for Hellenic art explained by your long stay on the Antiquity territory or are you guided exclusively by the inner logic of your quest?

A. Djikia In fact, many artists addressed the Antiquity theme in certain periods of their lives. This usually coincides with the middle-age crisis, when the picture of the world changes for man and he can no longer stay the way he used to be. In my case this change of perspective occurred when I was staying abroad for a long time; it was a double effect, as a result of which I lost the ability to draw the way I had done in the past, and whatever I did using old concepts irritated me so much that I just stopped drawing. Fate willed it that I found myself at Bilkent University in Ankara, an entirely new place and an entirely new status for me of a university lecturer. At first, I had a lot of free time, which I began to spend at the university library, by rights considered one of the best in Turkey. It was in that library that I found a pastime for the next few years. I started with timid attempts to draw 'from nature', which I did not do after I graduated. Reproductions of Old Greek vase painting served as 'nature'. Strangely enough, I produced something more or less interesting, primarily for myself, and this set the ball rolling. In early 2001 I brought and showed in Moscow about a hundred drawings in the style of Greek vases.

A. Petrovichev That is, an unexpected innovation proved to be the only way out of the crisis for you? Have you discovered a new format for yourself?

A. Djikia At least this kept me occupied for a while, and I was drawing something I liked. Leafing through numerous catalogues of Old Greek art, I unexpectedly came across Cretan-Mycenaean seals, of which I knew practically nothing. This turned out to be a world that really captivated me. To begin with, copying drawings is not as interesting as drawing from miniature reliefs. Next, strange as it may seem, Mycenaean miniatures have more knowledge of how to convey form and movement than Greek vase painting and are closer to contemporary (I mean early 20th-century) art. I indeed warmed up to the world of Mycenaean seals, was friends with lions, dragons, griffins and dogs, and admired amazing Mycenaean men jumping over bulls and women carrying snakes and breast-feeding griffins and lions. Within two years or so I made over 300 drawings on the theme of Mycenaean seals. In a way I felt I was a translator, who had discovered an old library that had not been read and who was in a hurry to translate the most interesting pieces into the modern tongue. It seemed to me that I indeed understood artists who worked more than 3000 years earlier and that I could have been one of them.

A. Petrovichev Do you want to say that you tried to express yourself through the proto-images of the Antiquity and the stories of ancient myths? Did you find them more interesting than what generations of active aesthetes reproduced and passive aesthetes enjoyed?

A. Djikia Different times, different tastes, different artists. Everyone chooses what is closer to one and one's time. The 19th century fell for the romantic beauty of the late Antiquity. The early 20th century felt affinity with things archaic. Me, too, and not only outwardly, but also inwardly. My personal style of drawing in principle differs but little from the style of Old Greek vase painting - the same line and shade projections on plane, the same distorted shapes, the same mythological and genre themes and the same inscriptions to go with the pictures.

A. Petrovichev And when did you seriously take up 'translation' of old vase painting into your own tongue?

A. Djikia In 2000, and I intend to close that chapter now. I am again strong enough to speak up in my own words. I am going to show at this exhibition some drawings of 2001 and 2002 on the theme of Mycenaean seals, which have just come from an exhibition at the Archaeology Museum of Thessaloniki and which I have never shown in Moscow, but I do it only because there are many Minotaurs in them. After all, Greeks knew of the Minotaur by hearsay, while the Mycenaeans saw him alive. The other works will be something of my own rather than something copied.

A. Petrovichev I find it noteworthy that in this case you are bringing to a close a fairly complicated theme or project and introducing a new medium and shape for you - wooden sculpture. A short while ago you put a red wooden bulldozer on view at the Tractor Drivers exhibition at the Krokin Gallery. You never stop expanding the horizons of your idiom. What was the impelling force in this case?

A. Djikia Olya and a few pieces of squared beams left from the construction of a summer-house in Ostozhenka Street that was codenamed 'Domkino' (Movie-house) and that I designed and helped to build. Olya saw a dream, in which a bulldozer had a mirror in its bucket. I made a model of cardboard, then took a hand-saw and made the bulldozer. My experience as a carpenter at Guggenheim when I was in New York stood me in good stead. And then, to quote the unforgettable Ostap Bender, 'the ice was broken' and other sculptures followed. We are going to show about ten objects, some of which we did together, and not only of wood.

A. Petrovichev Many of your fans, however, think of you in terms of graphic works, don't they?

A. Djikia Just as authors are divided into writers and poets, artists are divided into painters and graphic artists. This division may be crude, but it is well-justified from the philosophical point of view. Some people are carried away by the fabric of the material world, texture and details, and are capable of narrating at length. Others are interested in movement, air and fixing fleeting images. It is no mere chance that many poets, unlike writers, could draw well. For quite a while I was fascinated with pinning down visual or verbal images that crossed my mind, and I got some projects rather than artworks per se as a result. Maybe the reason is my training as an architect: a project or an idea is self-sufficient for me. The time has come to gather stones. Perhaps, sculpture is my way of fleshing out ideas. Many of my old drawings could be sculpture. I was surprised to discover dozens of sculpture projects in my pads. Even now, as I worked on the new exhibition, I had some not bad ideas for sculpture, and they materialized immediately. As for 3D thinking, I'm quite good at it after doing well in descriptive geometry.

A. Petrovichev We've dealt with technique and form, and now for content. Your new exhibition is called Labyrinth, or the Story of the Minotaur. I guess the story caught your eye at the university library in Turkey?

A. Djikia Nope. I have some favorite myths that are somehow well attuned to my own life story. The myth of the Minotaur is one of them. I am both the Minotaur and Daedalus, and there was a time when I was Icarus. I'll show works of the early 1980s, mid-1990s and 2000s at this exhibition. I believe many artists found the myth of the Minotaur to their hearts - suffice it to remember Picasso and Borges. I saw the situation in a similar light - the Minotaur, half bull, half man, an illegitimate son of a lecherous queen and in love with his own sister, lives in a labyrinth built by the mad architect Daedalus, keeping friends with Icarus, thinking about life and writing poetry - this is the way I see him. The Minotaur depressed, enraged, melancholy, wearing a mask or a hat, at the frontline, the killed Minotaur, and the old Minotaur, with or without his Ariadne. One thing can be said about him - he is without a knife. Theseus is the one with a knife.

A. Petrovichev Yours is a fairly personified art, as is seen from the above. Is true art in general possible without personification?

A. Djikia The paradox is that the truer art is, the less it has of the author, but this makes the author even more visible. My teacher, Nikolai Nikolayevich Markarov, used to tell me, 'Djikia, when a person takes up a pencil, he is standing naked in front of the people.'

A. Petrovichev Then, is it okay to stand naked in front of the people?

A. Djikia There are worse things than that. As it is, people do stand naked in front of each other. The people who pointed at the Emperor and shouted that he hadn't got anything on themselves had no pants on, the same as, for that matter, the swindlers who had woven him new clothes.