In June 2023, the pop/off/art gallery hosted an exhibition entitled “Antiforms” by Vasily Kononov-Gredin. The title of the exhibition, “Antiforms”, reflects the phenomenon of an object that, after artistic manipulation, is reborn and transformed into a new object, without losing the ability to return to its original function. She presented viewers with reassembled objects that were originally disassembled into their component parts and then reassembled into new objects. The exhibition included objects united by a common idea – the potentiality of things. The artist’s task was to rethink the essence of objects through their disassembly and analysis of their component parts, as well as the logic of their use.
A new object created specifically for the PERMM Museum is the anti-form of the Mercedes-Benz G-Class, known as the Gelendvagen. This car has a rich history, in which different time periods are intertwined. It became a symbol of the 90s and 2000s and has long been a part of Russian culture and folklore.
“Gelik” personifies the dream of an ideal car and the feeling of security that it brings to its owner. But it is important to note that this vehicle was originally designed for off-road use and for use in various services, such as rescue services, forest protection, etc. Therefore, the black color that we associate today with the Gelendvagen was not characteristic of the original concept. Previously, it was painted in bright colors: green, red, yellow, as in the case of the presented car. The photograph displayed next to the rebuilt car allows the viewer to see what this particular car looked like in 1984.
In the process of creating the anti-shape of the Gelendvagen, interesting details from the past were discovered, such as the bright yellow floor and internal elements hidden under the black upholstery. A special highlight was the presence of a steel miniature on the dashboard, replacing the clock – St. Christopher carrying the baby Jesus across the sea, with the inscription “gut fahrt” (happy trip), a play on words associated in Russian with the word “fortuna”.
A person initially participates in a chain of self-reproducing structures, which is the basis of our interaction with the world. When a person is born, he immediately falls into the structure of the mother-maternity hospital-cradle, after which the person masters the language, and self-awareness comes through the language. A person who has realized himself begins to reproduce the structures of human relationships familiar to him and produce structure – build houses, engage in art, interact with people according to the rules established by society and any other production, and thereby he prepares for the next born person the structure into which he will be born.
That is, we get a self-reproducing chain where, thanks to language, a person becomes aware of himself and reproduces the reality around him. This chain looks like this: structure – language – consciousness – structure – language – consciousness – and so on in a circle from ancient times and as long as humanity continues to exist. Therefore, the author put these words on the carburetor of the car.
General types of sculpture
No additional bolts, welding, or frame were used in the work on the antiform. The sculpture was assembled based on the shape dictated by the details.
