The pop/off/art gallery presents a personal exhibition “The Path of Sisyphus” by Alexey Stanislavovich Grigorev (1949–2002), a Moscow sculptor and graphic artist closely associated with the group of sixties sculptors. An innovative approach to combining various materials and technical experiments with metal became the markers of Alexey Grigoriev’s sculptural plasticity.

A separate line in Grigorev’s art was the mythological theme, which he took as a basis for reflection on human nature. The hero of his compositions overcomes himself and circumstances, he follows a dramatic narrative towards fate. Comparing the sculptor’s life with the story of Sisyphus, Alexey Grigorev writes:

“The work of a sculptor is similar to the work of Sisyphus. This myth, so brilliantly interpreted by Camus, very accurately expresses the position of sculpture in the modern world. History is a road. Sculpture is a stone. The road goes up, goes down, winds. Sculptural monuments accompany history like milestones. Sometimes sculpture runs after history, afraid to lag behind it - and can lose itself. And having stopped abruptly, stepping aside, it remains itself.

The exhibition will feature ceramic sculptures by Alexey Grigoriev from the 1990s, gravitating towards the laconic aesthetics of ancient artifacts of Mediterranean culture, medium-format sculptures made of metal, using the example of which you can get acquainted with the author's methodology for welding the material, as well as graphic works using ink. Clay reliefs and small plastic forms will be compared with a series of sculptures "Olympic Games" of the 1990s, made of polished metal. The exposition will be divided into several narrative lines dedicated to mythological plots and heroes. The exhibition is timed to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the master's birth (date of birth December 23, 1949).

Alexey Stanislavovich Grigoriev (1949-2002) was born in Kursk. In 1973 he graduated from the art and graphics department of the Moscow Pedagogical Institute named after V. I. Lenin. In 1976 he was accepted as a member of the Union of Artists of the USSR. Since 1972 he began to exhibit actively. He was awarded medals for his works shown at the All-Union Sculpture Quadrennial in Riga (1988) and the Moscow Sculpture Exhibition (VDNKh, 1990). He took an active part in apartment exhibitions together with nonconformist artists. In the 1980s, individual works by A. Grigoriev in the genre of park and monumental sculpture appeared in Ufa ("Boy with a Tree", 1988), Nizhny Novgorod ("Annunciation", 1989), Tyumen ("Revival of Life"), Trostyanets (Ukraine, 1986). In 1984, Grigoriev took part in the creation of a sculpture park in the center of Tashkent. In the 1990s, he was engaged in book illustrations ("Poems for Children" by Daniil Harms, poetry by Annegret Golin, "The Foundation Pit" and "Chevengur" by Andrei Platonov). In collaboration with Daniel Metlyansky, he created a paired monument (Moscow-Berlin): two fragments of the destroyed Berlin Wall were installed in Moscow near the A.D. Sakharov Center and in the center of Berlin. Grigoriev's works are in the collections of the State Museum of Fine Arts named after A. S. Pushkin (Moscow), in the State Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow), in the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (Moscow), in the Kursk Picture Gallery named after A. A. Deineka (Kursk), in the Museum of the History of the City of Obninsk, in the Haus am Checkpoint Charlie Museum (Berlin), in the open-air sculpture park "Muzeon" (Moscow). He died in 2002 in Moscow.