An Introduction To - Artist and Curator

2013 Exhibition

Sergey Temerev

Part 1 | Sergey, a few words from you re your start in the Arts ..........

I started my artistic way early enough: at seven years old, simultaneously with secondary school, I began going to the "House of pioneers and schoolchildren" which existed in the artistic circle and then went to study at the "City Art school" in the city of my childhood.

After graduation from the eighth class of the secondary school, I faced questions about my life-way choice. At that time, a Sea and a sailor's way attracted me with the same force then Art. Up to that time, I already had a little practice on the small ships, and I did a seriously overviewing of the learning institutions for a seaman career. But, suddenly, the high forces strangely judged this case. My vision sharpness went down to a level that didn't allow become a navigator but allowed study as an artist.

In 1978 I entered the Secondary Art School named after Boris Loganson, attached to the Repin Academical Institute of Fine Art Academy of the USSR. I studied for a bit longer time, with pauses, and changes of interest and directions. I went from the architectural class to the Graphics class, but the choice of the lifeway was continuing.

Then, in 1989, I graduated from the Leningrad Academical Institute of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, named after Ilya Repin, attached to the Academy of Fine Art of the USSR mentioned above. I've got a diploma from an "Architect & Artist" and dedicated enough long time such an honorable profession. I'm the author of a few buildings and interiors, and also a few awarded the contests projects.

In 2003 I began teaching at the St-Petersburg Stieglitz State Academy of Art & Design in the Applied Metal Department. Then I began to combine it with teaching at the Interior and Equipment Department. Since 2008 I've got the title of Associate Professor and now Professor.

All this time I took part in art exhibitions. From the school up to professional ones. And up to my first personal show, which took place at the Alvar Aalto Library in 1993 in Vyborg, where I live now. During this time, I held ten solo shows in Russia and abroad, and also I was a participant in about a hundred collective exhibitions in Russian as well as International.

We asked Sergey - You are a very successful artist and curator, can you tell us which exhibitions influenced you?

The first one; I was invited to take part in an exhibition dedicated to the creative painting activity of the architects of my city and was held in the exhibition hall, named after Arkhip Kuindzhi. At that time I was going to take entrance exams to the Academy.

For the first time, I understood how the multitude of absolutely heterogeneous creative expressions of different artists could compose a whole. That was like seeing a mosaic's miraculous montage. The next one was the exhibition of three generations of the Wyeth family, held in Rafael's Hall of the Fine Art Academy at the time when I was already a student. The exhibition parts were so different (different levels, processes etc.) and became a narration about the artistic family, and at the same time about the three personalities. This exhibition also influenced me in the sense of the destruction of false stereotypes about watercolor.

The third one was the main turn for me in many aspects. That was my first solo exhibition in the Aalto Library in 1993. At this event, I was forced to face directly many aspects, the listing of which could have been a complete description of an exhibition activity as is.

This third (solo) exhibition influenced you as a curator as well... A couple of words about it? Can an artist be a curator?

If we talk about an 'exhibition', we likely always might be talking about its 'curator'. I have to remark, that it's meant only a name of a 'role' with some functions.

Would it be fair (and clear?) to call an artist, who shows a solo exhibition, additionally a curator of it? Formally, and furthering a logic, yes.

Here are only a part of the questions, while preparing for the exhibition:

• Defining a starting idea. • Balance of works, how they would be perceived. • Venue • Catalog • Framing • Shipping and of course • Financing the exhibition.