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| Gor Chahal is one of the most noteworthy contemporary artists, probably the only one whose creative method combines and synthesizes a scholarly approach and the elements of a ritual. As an “actual” artist, Chahal is of a type rarely found in the Russian artistic community: a “universal master”, with a diploma in science – applied mathematics, from the Moscow Institute of Engineering and Physics (MIFI) – and also a contributor to numerous creative experiments undertaken in cooperation with groups of poets, musicians and artists. But while the style of Chahal’s creations seems to lie within the context of Actual Art, in substance they are, in some sense, at the other end of the spectrum. In his work Chahal has attempted something that artists from his circle normally avoid: his themes often concern faith, without the negative attitude that often dominates postmodern interpretations of this subject, but with a deep awareness that true art simply cannot exist without contact with the tradition of the sacred, Christianity in this case. For the artist, the antagonism at the heart of the creative processes of the last century – specifically, the opposition of beauty and truth – is a cause for re-unification of the two absolutes. In an attempt to synthesize them he creates a new artistic language relying on the technological devices available for modern artists and ancient religious tradition. However, the artist believes that such re-unification cannot be achieved without certain efforts on the part of both the art object’s creator and the viewer. In other words, the artist conceptualizes the nascence of a work of art only in terms of vigorous penetration of the essence of an artistic proto-image: as the result of the joint efforts of the artist and the viewer (Vera Golovina, STG). |
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