Yevgen Samborsky

Artist's text on the project:

The performative installation consisted from my personal belongings that were stored in the gallery space for the whole exhibition period form 21.06.2013 until 28.07.2013. I could only keep the stuff I wore and the ones I could carry in my backpack. I visited gallery regularly to change and documented every visit with a camera. The documentation complemented the display on a daily basis. 

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Artist's text on the project:

In spring 2012, I worked for the 7 Berlin Biennale as assistant of the Polish artist Pawel Althamer in his project "Draftsmen's Congress." The project was held in the old St. Elisabett Church, that is a cultural and artistic institution now. An unpleasant incident happened to me there. All people who were involved in the project were leaving their belongings in sacristy during working hours and one day someone stole two backpacks, one of them was mine. It was a pity to loose my bag with all my possessions because I took only necessary things for my stay in Berlin. But more than that I became interested in the situation that happened. I walked around the church, looking if my stuff was planted. And when inspecting the place where the bags were kept I found an old cassock (priest`s garment) among the abandoned church things. Few days later I turned it into a backpack altering only minor details and cropping the unnecessary. In that somewhat ironic way church returned my stolen backpack. This personal experience was something like confirmation of the theory that "energy can not appear and disappear out of nowhere".

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It sometimes happens that one wants to explain a certain thought to people but fails to formulate it. Words are searched for, but they are like senseless sounds, like empty bubbles from comic strips, it is as if words are lacking. It happens so, does it not? It is here that art becomes a way of communication, art with its means can substitute for the hours of empty conversations and explanations. It is not worthwhile to expatiate, it is time to work. 

Evgeny Samborsky’s exhibition “Velvet Nothing” is just an example of how the human being attempts to sort out his feelings and the surrounding world, testing it in motion, without superfluous words, without asking or believing answers, but learning it through own experience. Articles presented at the exhibition are an attempt to fully show how much happens around us and how wide the range of choice is in modern world. “Velvet Nothing” is the matter which turns out new to us, and everyone can delve into it and sense its influence. Is it dangerous or not? The answer will be known only after we are soaked through, sponge-like, with new information. And this not abstract graphomania, for if one thinks hard, such a submersion is an inseparable part of any human being. Not the motion itself during submersion is important here, but the moment when it’s clear to you that the first step is already taken.

As a known saying goes, curiosity killed the cat… but maybe, it didn’t. And maybe, not the cat alone? Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

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