Street artists from Yekaterinburg to paint an artwork using Molotov cocktails at the URB festival

Burning time: August 3, 2012
12–2pm
on Kyläsaari beach

On view: August 3–8, 2012
Baana, Mannerheimintie Road Timofey Radya and Sergey ‘Monobrow’ Kleschev’s poetic street-art piece about a Tibetan monk’s faith, “painted” with Molotov cocktails, will be shown in Helsinki on Friday, August 3. The work is being produced in collaboration with HIAP and the URB 12 festival. It also serves as the ‘finissage’ of HIAP’s summer exhibition Takes on Memory & Flight Paths. The work will be on view on the wall of the Baana railway cutting below Mannerheimintie Road, August 3–8. The burning of the work can be seen on Kyläsaari beach at 12:00–14:00 on August 3.

Radya and Kleschev are from the youngest generation of Russian street artists, for whom taking risks in a repressive society is a normal part of being an artist. Nevertheless, their sometimes small-scale, sometimes monumental works have often been accepted by the public authorities as part of the urban landscape. As when Radya and his group illicitly painted the supports of a large bridge in the heart of Ekaterinburg to look like dominoes.

The fire painting about the Tibetan monk’s faith continues the artists’ series of pacifist paintings. In Ekaterinburg Radya and Kleschev have used Molotov cocktails to paint second-world-war soldiers, who literally put their faces in the flames. The works were hung on the wall of an abandoned wartime hospital. The burned black faces were washed away by the rain.

Radya and Kleschev will talk about their works and about their status as artists of the younger generation in Russia beside their work at the Mannerheimintie Road end of the Baana on August 3, starting at 19:00. On that same day, the World Political City Walk arranged by Teivo Teivainen as part of the URB festival will end beside Radya and Kleschev’s work. The walk starts from Kiasma at 17:00.

The work has been realized as a collaboration between HIAP, the URB 12 festival, Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, and the Ministry of Education and Culture.

“Anybody who makes street art is a friend of mine.”