Nikita Alexeev

Starlings Over Rome was made after Alexeev’s journey to Rome in 2004, where he witnessed a natural wonder. Twice a year, loud flocks of starlings cover the Eternal City, at times completely obscuring the sky. It is “starlings” that fill and then leave the surface of Alexeev’s quadriptych, which was inspired by this phenomenon, once described by Nikolai Gogol. In the second series of work from the Crosses cycle—Waisting 2 Seconds and Waisting 5.400 Seconds—the artist makes ironic reference to the drawing technique on which the work is based as a pointless activity while also underlining its dramatic nature, that in essence it shortens life.

Alexeev explained that meditative practices like his slow, calming drawing with a technical pen on a blank sheet were processes comparable to thinking and searching for new ideas. But, like a journey, new thoughts take time: the exchange of time for thoughts is what forms the fabric of the life of the artist. Life consists of a particular number of moments, which decreases with every breath and step, just like the number of noisy birds decreases from sheet to sheet. The work, however, hints that even when the flock disappears beyond the horizon, it is not gone forever but will return in accordance with the cycle of nature.

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