Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art presented an exhibition of works by Rene Reza executed in the artist’s original style
- A patented fine art medium inspired by innovations of the great modernists of the past and the contemporary string theory
- Vibrant and striking artworks created with syringe and acrylic
- The search for connecting threads between individuals, as well as between the artist and the viewer
Almost a century stands between us and the days of great art manifestos. Over the past five decades, art was not so much enriched with new forms as augmented, making space in museum rooms for fashion photography, design, weird slow dancing and even lab-like practices: nowadays, an exhibition can easily feature a Petri dish with some slime at the bottom and a microscope. Among the current groundbreakers are science art with its technological explorations and various experiments involving new digital instruments. However, it’s been a while since new -isms were heralded in visual arts. All the more naïve and thus touching and honest is the art of Igor Ryazantsev and his self-invented ‘Filumism’ (derived from the Latin filum, meaning ‘thread’).
The transcendental ideas that informed abstract painting at the beginning of the 20th century have been superseded by the rather striking imagery of modern physics. Disguised under the sonorous moniker Rene Reza, Igor Ryazantsev picked up the innovative impulse of the great modernists and proclaimed a fairly simple and convincing programme: ‘Everything is interconnected.’ This premise happened to be in sync with the nigh on mystical strings theory that has greatly expanded the horizons if not of conventional science then at least of human imagination. The theory of quantum strings has the potential for turning into a philosophical concept describing the nature and being of all creation, which means that ‘Filumism’ was right on cue as an art movement capturing the spirit of its time. The thread of ‘Filumism’ can be traced back to Ilya Zdanevich’s ‘Everythingism’ and Mikhail Larionov’s ‘Rayonism,’ which is hardly surprising, inasmuch as ‘everything is interconnected.’ Although the founding of a new art movement has a playful, mocking element, lying at its core is a sensible vision of the artistic process as a universal timeless realm.
Rene Reza’s art is traditional and yet revolutionary. Canvas is the artist’s starting point, but, thanks to the new painting tool, pictorial plane comes alive not with dots and lines, but with the kind of complex planes similar to those used in animated models to represent the vibrations of endless strings. Reza’s works seem to hold the exact promise of the ‘compactified’ extra dimensions which for now are still beyond human perception.
Igor Ryazantsev readily demonstrates his creative backstage, but expects no followers and shies away from establishing a full-fledged school. What is more important is that he keeps on living and working on his home turf, adding to its fame and eagerly acting as the cultural ambassador of Tyumen. Equally important for him is a kind of artistic discipline: after all, fine art is an occupation requiring a certain level of skill acquired through mastering its tools. Rene Reza’a artworks are truly fascinating, not least because, apart from sci-fi-like physics, they also echo the never-ending search for harmony – a way to reconcile antagonistic principles.
Specifically for his Erarta show, the artist went beyond the confines of a two-dimensional picture and created his first 3D objects. The future of ‘Filumism’ is certainly an intriguing one.
Born in Tyumen on 28 April 1965, Igor Ryazantsev began his art studies at the Alexander Mitinsky Secondary Art School. He went on to graduate from the History Department of the Tyumen State University, Tyumen Art College, and Tyumen State Institute of Culture, earning a degree in Fine Art Restoration. Working under the alias of Rene Reza, on 20 December 2011 he patented a new art medium under a self-coined term ‘Filumism.’ Year 2019 saw the founding of his Filumism Advancement Centre. The artist’s works were presented at various exhibitions, including solo shows in Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Kemerovo, Tyumen.
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