АТОМ
The Ruarts Foundation presents ‘Atom’, a new project by Ivan Ninety dedicated to the town of Protvino and its scientific heritage. This is the artist’s third solo exhibition at Ruarts. Ivan Ninety has used archival photographs and a variety of artistic techniques to convey the spirit of an era and the scientific aspirations of that time. Indeed, Protvino occupies a special place in the history of Soviet and Russian science, and the creation of this exhibition is not only an artistic, but also a cultural achievement, a way to preserve the memory of the people and their dreams that shaped this unique town. The artist strives to assemble something whole from fragmented memories, to restore the disintegrating past into a single picture of time and place that changes and collapses before our eyes.
“I was born and raised in Protvino, a scientific research and development settlement in the Moscow region, and I consider the town as a unique place, since it was one of the most important centres of Soviet science,” says the artist. “A proton accelerator, still the largest in Russia, was built and launched here in 1967. But the dreams of progress, the spiritual aspirations of these physicists, their hard work and the desire to be pioneers ultimately faced a lack of funds and the impossibility of completing the planned hadron collider, so the collider ring was closed in 1994 and the project remained unfinished.”
In his previous solo exhibition ‘Baggage’ (2021, Ruarts Gallery), Ivan Ninety has already shown how art may be used to document and interpret changes in the physical and mental landscape. The ‘Atom’ project enhances this effect by connecting history with the present, personal memory with collective memory. Using diverse techniques (oil, collage, graphics), the artist continues to work in muted monochrome tones that give the effect of dust or faded paint, perfectly conveying a sense of the past, of impermanence.
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Ivan Ninety was born in 1990 in the city of Protvino, Moscow Oblast. Educated as a software engineer and graphic designer. The artist began his career in 2007 with graffiti writing, while fascinating with film photography. He participated in the group exhibition Wall Elements in the Manege Central Exhibition Hall (St. Petersburg, 2018) and in the II and III Artmossphere Biennales of Street Wave Art (2016, 2018). Ruarts Gallery held the artist’s Death of Flowers solo exhibition in 2018. In addition to murals, the artist creates collages, works with wood and other materials, as well as with objects found; makes assemblies or objects, engages in illustration, film photography and publishes his own magazines (zines). Ivan Ninety’s works are held in private collections in Russia, Poland, Czech Republic, Germany, the United Kingdom, Israel, Brazil, Puerto Rico and Australia.
