Crossroads of arts in Erarta
Erarta Museum has successfully held the first International Festival of Synthesis of Arts ▲CROSS ART, where one could see paintings from the ocean bottom, listen to a paper orchestra and independently synthesize sounds and lights.
The festival opened with a grotesque performance right outside the museum entrance. Someone sinister in a black coat with a hood was offering the audience to through a stone at an old piano. At first the viewers refused to respond, but then got the taste and literally bombed the instrument, which continued to make sounds mixed with the DJ's electronic roar. Thus the performance confirmed the idea of art immortality.
The festival consisted of two parts: installations and exhibitions that ran from 19 to 25 May, and concerts and performances that took place every night.
On the first day of the festival the guests had a great chance of personal meeting with Andre Laban, the former cameraman of Jacques Cousteau's "Calypso" crew and a unique artist who made his paintings under water. Such an original technique came to life thanks to his knowledge of chemistry and invention of special primer, which allowed applying ordinary oils on canvas at a depth. The unusual paintings could be seen at the exhibition with a poetic title "Passion for the blue".
Another outstanding international project presented Pierre Bastien, who brought to Erarta his mechanical orchestras. One consisted of real musical instruments and children's meccano with electric motors. The musical robots played nonstop without human help. The second was made of papers and office devices. Paper rustling, fan noises, crackling sounds, and illumination of lights and shadows created absolutely special mesmerizing effect.
A Dutch team "Tijmenrockt & Arts The Beatdoctor" invited the audience to become co-authors of their audiovisual installation. Their "Moebius' Travel Machine" offered to press any button and twist any knob, to set your own rhythm of electronic sounds in industrial style, and to arrange a real light performance.
"We tried to find such projects and objects that would combine different styles, formats and different kinds of art. Such symbioses give birth to totally new, incredible, strange, and exciting things as Unidentified Art Objects" — said Denis Rubin, the director of ▲ CROSS ART festival and the program director of Erarta Museum. The festival hosted such great and different projects as a charlatan circus ("Le Cirque de Charles la Tannes") from Moscow, installations by famous St. Petersburg stage designer Alexander Shishkin-Hokusai and unusual video project by Duve Dykstra from the Netherlands. Each museum hall and each day during the festival was special and full of new vivid impressions.
