The Termitaries

The Manege Unit, the Triumph Gallery and the Media Art Lab Center of Art and Culture present a personal exhibition of Dmitry Bulnygin, The Termitaries. The show will continue the “Fathers and Sons” series showcasing the most relevant works bordering on filmmaking and videoart.

The exhibition will feature the first show of the artist’s new project, a three-part video installation called The Termitaries.

The works of Dmitry Bulnygin explore various applications of video in art across the range of genres from documentaries to large-scale multimedia installations. Falling somewhere between reality and phantasmagoria, this medium opens a dialogue between objects, photography, installations and urban environment. One of the artist’s recurring subjects is the antithesis of nature and manmade inorganic structures and systems. The Termitaries draw a comparison between the principles of a termite mound and the patterns of architecture in Moscow.

Termites are the first animals to have mastered the construction of “buildings” 200 million years ago. Their creations are biogenic structures made of sand and saliva parched by the sun, which resemble the shapes of hills or chimneys. The artist creates video sculptures of the termitaries using a selection of contemporary buildings constructed in Moscow since the 1930s and up to the present day.

Each of the videos features only one angle of the building over the duration of a day.

“While documenting the changes of architecture, the video captures the transformation of its form. The floors emerge and disappear depending on the lighting. Here, the video is attached to the architectural massive, and the hard folds of the termitary get animated under sun and wind.” (Louise Morin)

About the artist:

Dmitry Bulnygin was born in 1965 in Novosibirsk. An architect by training, he began his artistic practices as a painter and then turned to sculpture and installations. A new stage of his work (since the late 1990s) involved approaches to master media technologies and video, which is now his major subject of exploration.

Selected personal exhibitions:

2015 — Neither Fish, Nor Slaves, Triangle Gallery, Moscow; Decorations, DEAC, Montenegro; Nothing is Perfect, Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow; 2013 – David & Co, VGLAZ community, Moscow; New Works, SCCA, Novosibirsk; In Short, NCCA, Tomsk; 2012 — Finita Dolce Vita, SCCA, Novosibirsk; Exorcism as a Show, video projection on a facade of a theatre, Kirov; Zombie Skyscrapers, video projection in an interior of a theatre, Kostroma; 2011 – Nutritious Mixes, video installations, photos, documents, SCCA, Novosibirsk; 2010 – Attempt, video installation, PERMM, Perm; Four Ballets, video installation, SCCA, Novosibirsk; 2009 — Flowers, video, Fabrika project, Moscow; Behind the Glass, video installation, Fabrika project, Moscow.

Media Contacts (accreditation, interviews):

Manege Unit | +7 (965) 412–74–24 | pr.manege@gmail.com

Elena Karneeva | e.karneeva@moscowmanege.ru, +7 (926) 576-40-53