Andrei Molodkin
Transformer No.M208

Palazzo Ducale in Genoa received Transformer No. M208, four site specific installations by Andrei Molodkin. The exhibition, curated by Linda Kaiser, is set up in the Salone del Maggior Consiglio and in the Cappella del Doge symbolic places of political and religious power, which it is no coincidence that the artist transforms with his work.

The installations are structures composed of transparent acrylic tubes that contain crude oil and others with argon gas. The contrast effect between black and white, between viscous material and luminescent substance causes a disorientation in the visitor.

“My Transformers are primary structures, open cages, made up of two modules, the neon tube and the industrial tube filled with oil: light and dark, positive and negative, a symbiosis of optimism and pessimism, victory and failure, euphoria and suffering, utopia and dystopia". Andrei Molodkin

In the Salone del Maggior Consiglio, the first three installations are crossed, separate constructions arranged on the same line. You enter the first facility with pipes filled with dark crude oil; you pass into the second, illuminated by direct contrast by argon gas, and cross the last, which overturns the sense of authority with the crude oil balance placed above the illuminated argon gas.

The fourth installation is located in the Doge's Chapel, which is independent and in the shape of a cross, suggesting the transformation of the place of worship from sacred to profane. The theme of the exhibition is closely linked to a political-ideological meaning, accentuated by the symbolic value of oil as an economic destabilizing element of the contemporary world.