Georgy Zakharov
«ASSOCIATION OF MAINTENANCE WORKERS»
Assemblage
Small hall
Curator — Valran

Georgy Zakharov was born on January 5, 1943 in the evacuation in the Sverdlovsk Region. After the World War II, he was brought to Leningrad. He came into art in 1960-s.
The exhibition is dedicated to Leningrad-Petersburg. There are assemblages of the last two decades where attributes of the city private life of the recent past — Soviet, Perestroika and post-Perestroika periods — are transferred into museum objects.
In 1970-s Georgy Zakharov oriented mainly to the formal searches. Since 1990-s, he has been working with the world of objects which is hardly connected with its social and historical contexts. For example, “Scales of Perestroika” (1998) is made of cash of various values only which belonged to that epoch; there is an association with the endless devaluation lasting for ten years. Cash is always presented in the work “Model of Upholstery Fabric for the Treasury” (1991-2001) where the author offers an exquisite usage of outdated money. The absurdity of the Leningrad private life is embodied in the work “Folded” (1991) where three parts of the folded triptych frame numbers of Leningrad communal flats — a table which exists on each entrance of a house. The logic of this order of numbers is unreadable. Why is number 33 on the ground floor, and number 13 — on the second floor? Nevertheless, these absurdities decorate our city by now, testifying that we still keep crazy traditions of the Soviet past.
Whatever did Georgy Zakharov make, in what materials did he work, his works are always laconic, ascetic, irreproachable in form and fundamental in mastery.