Alexander Shaburov

Object, video, performance and installation artist, photographer. Born in the family of Yevgeny Shaburov in Beryozovsky in Sverdlovsk Region (1965). Graduated from Sverdlovsk Academy of Architecture and Arts (1986) and Sverdlovsk University of Art (1995). Awarded a grant by the George Soros Foundation (1998). Founded the Blue Noses group with Vyacheslav Mizin (1999). Lives and works in Ekaterinburg and Moscow.

From an interview with Alexander Shaburov: “Humor and entertainment are not the most important things in our works. This is only part of the iceberg; art cannot be only funny. Not humour, but torn wallpaper in the background, becomes a metaphor for the tragicomic life on the ruins of an empire perceived everywhere. In addition, artists like Ernst Neizvestny have not so much compromised themselves, as completed their mission, so we have, naturally, gone away from them...

“They created, cutting themselves off from the hostile surrounding world, rising above the crowd. Their hundred-percent seriousness can be forgiven. We, however, find the Poet and King romantic paradigm outdated. We are the ‘little men’ who descended from heaven to earth. Abreast with the simple philistines, we speak in the same language as they do, with each one separately and, most importantly, as individuals. A didactic tone is out of place here.”