Nikita Alexeev. A Night at Shore

This work was made specifically for the exhibition at the library of Chiba University and consists of five elements. All of them bear the same drawings and texts. It is evident that the form itself (scrolls, folding screens, accordions made from folding screens) is a “japonaiserie”, and the use of absolutely European architecture of the university library as a “Japanese” space (library shelves become something like traditional tokonoma) importunately points to a false contradiction between “East” and “West”. Besides, the texts of “A Night at Shore” bristle with direct or indirect quotations from Buddhist sutras, from classical Japanese literature and from the stories of Kenji Miyazawa — although you can find there the quotations from the Gospel, Alexander Pushkin, Emily Dickinson and many others, including Celtic mythology and rock and roll lyrics. “A Night at Shore” is not about words but about the possibility and impossibility to see something sitting at the shore of life.