Architecture and Sculpture GardenAleksandr V. Emelyanov

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Photos courtesy of Aleksanr V. Emelyanov

Photos courtesy of Aleksanr V. Emelyanov

Photos courtesy of Aleksanr V. Emelyanov

Status

Extant

Address

9 Arzamasskaya ulitsa, Samara, Samarskaya oblast', 443050, Russia

Built

2000-2015

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About the Artist/Site

Born in Tashkent, Alexander Emelyanov followed his primary education by studying medicine in the 1980s. After completing his medical studies in 1987, he settled in Samara, where he took a job in pediatrics in one of the local hospitals.

While he worked intensively in the medical profession, Emelyanov also maintained significant interests in philosophy and art. And while he never studied art and so was self-taught in this area, in the late 1990s he began making paintings, mostly in a naive style. He also became interested in making small scale artistic constructions, sometimes displaying ironic commentary on his chosen subject, such as the series of Philosophical Apparati, which includes a work titled Apparatus Diagnosis and Treatment of All Diseases. This work, some 3.2 feet high (#1) was also similarly treated in a smaller version (Natasha, # 2), which includes disposable test tubes. Another small scale artistic construction was Aquaduct-3, a combination of horizontal and vertically placed boxes.

With a large garden surrounding his house, around 2009 Emelyanov began constructing and sculpting large artifacts. At that time, as he was only vaguely familiar with the phenomenon of art environments that exists in other countries, his idea was to make large scale naive architectural and sculptural forms, conceptually based on the design of Aquaduct-3.

His main creation became the Aquaduct Tashkent-13, an impressive structure some three meters high by four meters wide (13.1 x 9.8 feet), which he located along his garden fence. He constructed it from a variety of used materials, including old barrels and pots, parts of an old washing machine, a refrigerator, and more. The aquaductologic aspects of this creation manifest themselves in the combination of girders and uprights, while the intermediate spaces are filled with smaller structures, decorations, or imaginative scenes. Aquaduct Tashkent-13 is an ongoing creative project: new elements are constantly being added and existing ones are changed and modified.

Apart from this large creation the garden includes various other creative constructions, such as puppets, panels with texts or inscriptions, sculptures, totemlike poles, and decorated walls.

There also is a small cabin, organically linked to the various creative elements, which is used to display a selection of Emelyanov's paintings; this little building might be the smallest art gallery in the country.

In the field of art environments, Alexander Emelyanov in Russia is kind of a lone wolf. However, he intensively uses social media to monitor developments in this area elsewhere in the world and connect with those who share his interests.

- Henk van Es