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

 

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 As such this series already is a valuable historical document of St. Petersburg’s architectural history.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.