Love each other...

It was strange to find suddenly in the center of Norwich among malls, shops and various  offices, in the presence of big accumulation of people, hurrying on affairs on foot, by cycles, on various vehicles and cars, –  it was somehow strange unexpectedly to come across  Undercroft art gallery and the Asylum exhibition, created by the amazing English artist Gena Ivanov.

The exhibition really looks like an asylum. However this shelter is intended at all not in order that some fan of painting, as well as the casual visitor, could find here some rest from daily works and domestic cares. Perhaps, no other exposition can make more stunning impression on any person.
 
It seems that this asylum not for people, but for human souls.  Just, a moment ago, they were among us, but suddenly were out of this world, having left to fellows as inheritance only empty rooms, forgotten floors and windows-lattices (Gena Ivanov's work) as silent reproach to human diseases, unreasonable greed and utter stupidity … These souls shout to us from there : "What are you doing? Stop! Stop immediately! Don't repeat our mistakes! And as Jesus Christ was right that it isn't necessary to save treasures on the Earth!"
 
But we float in these hard times on the "Boat of hope" (work of Tanya Goddard), trying to scratch off  dirty windows of reality by fine blade,  even without noticing at times as the wounded sky spills on the earth to our foots, mixing up with sewage. We pretend that we don't notice. Being in   wadding cocoon of  imaginary wellbeing (Nick Denney's picture) we sit in cafe, eating cakes, counting "divine" likes, opening mythical stars on social networks, and  getting a great number of mythical friends in the same place. And only own display and the TV around us, where all as in serial with accurate and purposeful broaching: the more you look, the more  wadding in your head.

Right there – the politicians represented as in mutual and gentle friendship, with the mouths blurred from smiles, downright prostrated, with the disfigured faces and bodies (Gena Ivanov's works). However, the grin of their smiles is invariable, they know that mass media are capable now to hide any kind lie, including total, as wadding in voters' heads has collected enough. Before the art of possible called the policy, but now and impossible will fit therefore permissibly to lie without hesitating, caring only for own wellbeing and personal prosperity. The electorate will swallow everything. That oil (gas, coal and so forth) – our property; that the state cares for citizens, successful career and personal wellbeing of everyone;   that they fight against corruption and everybody  are equal before the law;  that they use fids of  efforts for upbringing  younger generation and so on, and so on, and so on. In general it's possible to cover with children problems any political goal as they are weak and meek as it is eloquently expressed in the image of thrown out by waves dead child in the drawing of John Ranse.
 
All this horror is reflected in the eyes of Sofia Shuvalova in "Self-portrait in black" from which she with shudder looks at surrounding reality, free from television retouch.  Here are – hardships of migrants in Jan Anderson's pictures, bombardments of cities and settlements, travails of homeless and outcast people obsessed with hatred to anything and everything whom any cardboard box  seems by own home  now (Tatyana Goddard's work).

It became difficult to love as it is difficult to breathe. Very difficult will love now as that follows from Jesus Christ's sermon.    However according to Friedrich Nietzsche "We have an art in order not to die of the truth".     These precepts are also followed by remarkable creative group under Gennady Ivanov's  curatory  who organized this surprising and substantial exposition with hope to make the world a better place.


               
      London – Norwich,    08.27.2016