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Kerim Ragimov (RU)

installation, video and paintings ‘Metro series’, 1993 - 2006                                    

Kerim Ragimov

Metro series paintings 1993-2002

Metro Frunzenskaja (left) - Metro Baltijskaja (right)

Kerim Ragimov

Reproductions of videostills

Kerim Ragimov’s Metro Series


For more than a decade Kerim Ragimov has painted all of Piter’s metro stations, these great architectural signs of conquest over the Neva swamp. Ragimov took photographs and subsequently made a painting of each Metro Station. The series, started in 1993, up till now comprises of 50 paintings. As such this series already is a valuable historical document of St. Petersburg’s architectural history.


But there is more to it: Ragimov plays brilliantly with photo-realism. We seem to be in the present time. But we could be in past time. These wonderful paintings let the spectator float through history. In some paintings a timeless, mystical light is shining: pedestrians seem to walk absentmindedly, their presence is irrelevant to the unmovable, stern metro buildings.


‘Frunzenskaja’ reminds one of a 1950’s Edward Hopper painting, ‘Lomonosovskaja’ brings the spectator into a 1960’s atmosphere of Soviet stagnation. Looking at ‘Gorgovskaja’ it seems we’re in the midst of a computer game.


Looking at Ragimov’s paintings may give us the idea that there might be a window through which we can look through time, and that Ragimov has pushed this window wide open.

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Inertia St. Petersburg 2006

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