A proposal to transform the monument to Peter the Great in Moscow through artistic interventions – 2013
Reason for its realization: 300th anniversary of the Russian Navy
Original author: Georgian sculptor and architect Zurab Tsereteli, President of the Russian Academy of Arts
Commissioned by: Mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov (Zurab Tsereteli’s close friend)
Location: Zamoskvorechye District, Moscow
Weight: 1000 tonnes
Inauguration: 1997
Costs: $ 288 million
Nicknames: Terminator, Gulliver
The advantage of the proposed revitalization is a more interesting ideological and aesthetic appeal of the result thanks to the upgrading of its content and innovation of its form, as well as the simple physical and economic availability of memorials which are mostly left unused and placed at demeaning places. Their ideological recycling will be cheaper than transporting the monument to another location, e.g., to Arkhangelsk and Petropavlovsk, as proposed by Vladimir Resin, the new Moscow Mayor.
In view of the overall revitalization of this art object, I propose to apply other statues to the existing body (torso). I assume that the form of the monument is so disparate and overly complex (although it strives for a compact appearance) that application of other statues will result in a strong, productive, almost surreal transformation. After its completion, the sculpture should look even more chaotic; it could create the impression of a random, expansionist accumulation.
Statues which I would like to use for the completion of the monument to Peter the Great are found everywhere in the areas that used to be under the influence of the USSR. They are figural bronze monuments to Lenin. I would deal very freely, almost randomly with these works, including their possible separation (division of the statue) into several autonomous segments.
External fixation of the statues will use the already existing structure of the staircase, which is part of the interior furnishing of the sculpture. The statues can be stabilized by steel beams fixed to the staircase.
