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Boris Bendikov “Stones” A fundamental difficulty that traps the viewer at Boris Bendikov’s exhibition is the absence of an explicit matrix, which allows us to catch the “concept”. It is no secret, that our mind is poisoned with the muddy waves of postmodernism and is habituated to a certain canon. We know that a decent artist creates a “project”. Meanwhile, Bendikov, at first glance, radically breaks with this practice. Well, actually, one can not find “project” in black and white style of photography or, let’s say, in disposition towards architectural motives, or in the love for the circles and lancet forms. No, Bendikov shows artistic courage, refusing any external communications. Thus, each of his image, as if loses the support of surrounding characters, freezes in his own autonomy, lonely isolation, which gives it the aura of a quiet and a little sad heroism. We can say that this is the art, devoid of justification, but rather refused to justify in the name of its own integrity. Here is the fragment of cast fence, there is the boarded up window, here is a column covered with mold, and there is inelaborate vignette next to the bell ring and this as if misplaced nameplate. There are no two identical objects, two similar camera angles, not even a unity of space. But a deeper contemplation of the photographs of Boris Bendikov suggests a powerful internal connection behind this loneliness of images. This connection however, is determined not by “project”, but by something much more profound, serious , and so little perceptible. It seems that was Chesterton who wrote that in order to truly appreciate the significance of a Gothic cathedral, it is not enough to come and inspect it (if we appeal to our time, duplicating one’s own memory with the queue of digital images). The only one is able to feel this majestic architecture, who lives in its shadow, passing its stones, sometimes not even noticing them. The reality is opening only when the existence of a man enters the existence of the surrounding world. This is the view of Boris Bendikov. He sees the surrounding ancient stones, as if with peripheral vision, but this is the reason why his glance is able to capture the latent energy in them. A few years ago the short but bright wave of art, which called itself nonspectacular art took a ride on the Moscow art scene. The object of search of its followers was a hidden meaning of everyday life. They sought to find the sacred in the plain and inconspicuous. Those practices were not spiritual practices, but it is difficult to deny their proximity to Zen Buddhism. Bendikov never belonged to nonspectacular art, he may not even know about it. But his method is to identify the hidden reality in a typical and even profane. Even an architectural image today is a special kind of banality. Not in vain we have mentioned the practice of Zen Buddhism, although the pictures of Boris have no signs of interest in the east. Instead, a visible texture of his photographs sends back to a fundamentally Western imagery. However, a careful contemplation of these prints (double prints in fact - photo prints, and prints of the time) reminds us of the famous gardens of stones. For the garden of stones is a kind of space, which is associated with the location of the observer, and it forms a field of view, where the observer perceives the harmonious placement of objects. However, the garden of stones is part of the architectural plan, that is, forms a space which is an external continuation of the interior. And here we can see how the photographs of Boris Bendikov appear to be the organic continuation of the gallery space, but rather to say that the gallery itself, thanks to the artist, increases the meanings and becomes an extension of the world, and other worlds ... Bogdan Mamonov
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