9B Gallery in collaboration with the Ruarts Gallery presents a solo exhibition by the Moscow artist Alexey Luka. The project ‘Side View’ is dedicated to transitional states, loss of stability and the search for balance.
The title of the exhibition refers to a concept in oratory – the technique of taking a ‘side view’, when the situation has risen to a critical maximum and it’s necessary to consider the course of a conversation from the position of an observer, stepping aside from subjective thought structures.
Alexey Luka will create a dual space in 9B Gallery, giving the viewer an opportunity to choose the trajectory of movement through the exhibition, to independently determine the point of observation and reflection. One of the objects at the exhibition in the form of a chair will literally allow you to look ‘from the side’, shifting the focus of vision and altering the direction of your thought process.
The author’s tools remain unchanged – Luka works with colour, shape, texture and collage layouts. This is not the first time Alexey has created objects directly within the exhibition space. Luka created a total installation at the Ruarts Foundation for the ‘Section’ (Razrez) exhibition with Matvey Shapiro in 2022, using items and objects taken from the Snegirev mansion on Plyushchikha; then in 2023, for the personal exhibition ‘Phantom Memories’, Alexey transformed the architecture of the Ruarts Gallery, referring to trigger points, processes of disappearance and the ephemerality of memories.
Residents of Nizhny Novgorod are already familiar with Alexey Luka: his works have been showcased in group exhibitions and on the walls of the city, since Alexey is a regular participant in street art festivals.
As part of the Mesto festival in June 2021 he created the assemblage ‘A Situation of Uncertainty’ on the façade of a building at the address 38 Korolenko Street in Nizhny Novgorod.
Alexey Luka (born in 1983) is a Moscow artist, one of the participants of the Russian street art wave movement, whose creative method addresses abstract painting and rethinking of modernist traditions in urban space. Alexey Luka works with the architectural form and texture of materials, using various media, including painting, graphics, objects and installations.
Alexey’s interest in the architectural component, as well as his passion for graffiti and street art, emerge during his studies at the Moscow Architectural Institute. Gradually, street art became an increasingly prominent artistic movement in Russia, having acquired institutional recognition owing to numerous festivals and biennales. In parallel with this process, Luka’s desire to transform his hobby into professional artistic practice grew.
Alexey Luka is a frequent participant in the Russian and international Biennales (I, II and III Street wave art biennale “Artmossphere” (2014, 2016, 2018), the 6th Biennale in Marrakesh, Morocco (2016)), as well as in important collective projects (the first integral research on Russian street art «Wall elements» by Alex Partola (2018)) and exhibitions («Wall elements» at the Central Exhibition Hall Manege in St. Petersburg (2018), «The Wall» as a part of the Street Art Forum in MMOMA (2019)). Besides, Alexey regularly creates large-scale murals participating since 2012 in various public-art festivals all over the world: in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Vyksa, Rostov-on-Don and Astrakhan, as well as in many cities of Italy, Spain, Germany, Denmark, France, Estonia, Slovakia and Morocco.
Luka's works have been several times presented at dual and collective exhibitions in Ruarts Gallery (“Wall elements” 2014; “Unforeseen Circumstances” 2015; “Dacha Season” 2017; “Wall elements 2” 2018; “Phantom Memories” 2023).
