Artem Maksimov | Cosmoscow 2022

Artem Maksimov works in a spacious studio in the Svetoch loft on Bolshaya Pushkarskaya. Sometimes there are self-organized exhibitions of Belarusian or St. Petersburg artists. In our new material, we show the artist's ceramic life, talk with him about the Belarusian context, about ceramics as an actual medium, and talk about the national in art!

[Artem Maksimov] (https://store.didigallery.com/catalog/authors/maksimov-artem/1) (b. 1990) is a Belarusian ceramist and author of art objects, lives and works in St. Petersburg . In his work, Artem develops ideas that balance on the verge of Eastern Slavic mythology and marginal artistic practices. Characters of street, prison and everyday culture become his heroes - couriers, gopniks, inmates, pigeons or riot policemen. Using decorative techniques rooted in the genre of ceramics, such as gilding, the artist aestheticizes the phenomena of grassroots culture and places them on a par with other images of high art.

Tell us how you got started? How did you get into ceramics?

This is a very difficult question, or rather, a very long answer to it, because I tried a lot of things. I studied in honey, studied at a vocational school as a bricklayer, as a tiler (I was expelled from vocational school two months later).

No freemasonry? :)

Yes, yes :) Then I finished 11 classes, entered somewhere else, and then I thought: “Well, where will I go.” Moreover, both at school and my parents told me "you will not achieve anything." In general, they wanted me to become a musician, and I went to enter a music college, but I deliberately sabotaged the dictation (approx. ed - solfeggio). I hated music at that moment. After - somehow I walked past the art college and thought: "Let me come in - I'll do it." Went in - got in. Then I was 18 years old. I entered and at 26 graduated from the Belarusian State Academy. At that moment there was no turning back. I fell in love, I realized that this is who I want to be, what I want to do. After the academy, I immediately came here (ed. note - to St. Petersburg) and began to make art. But the search for myself as an artist, the understanding of what I want to do, came later. The academy's problem is that they teach very well how to work (techne), how to sculpt, how to draw, how to write, but they don't teach how to be an artist. Moreover, they also greatly kill self-esteem, saying: “Here, look at the classics, and who are you.”

I have always participated in exhibitions, curated a lot, organized it myself, but there were always many orders, there was not enough time for art. Covid has done its job! Our main customers were museums, galleries (souvenir), bars, restaurants (dishes) - all this turned out to be closed. There is no work to do. It's boring, I had to do what I wanted to do for a long time. Somehow it went like this, and after that I didn’t want to return to orders.

Why did you decide to immediately move to St. Petersburg after the academy?

I got love! I was at an art symposium and there I met Katerina (ed. note - Katerina Alimova, artist), my ex-wife. And love blossomed.

Is the Belarusian theme conceptually present in your thoughts, in your work?

Yes. I am Belarusian in the first and last generation. Nationality is mostly a cultural code that you have. My parents consider themselves Russian, they generally came from the north of Russia. And I was born in Belarus, absorbed the local cultural code. I basically consider myself not a local (in St. Petersburg - ed.), I do not consider myself Russian. I am very interested in East Slavic themes because in the north they are somehow not so brightly Slavic. I am unlikely to return to Belarus, unless the president is replaced there. I don't know when this will happen. And now, even if I ever have heirs, they will be Russian again.

But for you, it turns out, it is fundamentally important to return to this cultural background?

Yes, yes, remember. And it is impossible not to return to it, because it is a powerful cultural code. I grew up, lived in this country until the age of 26 - nothing can erase this.

What is relevance in art for you and what does it mean to be a contemporary artist today?

The question is difficult. In general, to be an artist is to reflect, and to be relevant is to work in relevant media, with topical issues, and so on. But, it seems to me, one should not strive to be an actual artist.

A ke