The Drama Machine

In April 2016 "16th LINE" gallery in Rostov-on-the-Don presented The Drama Machine, a one-man exhibition by Sergey Sapozhnikov.

The works in the exhibition some of which are part of the Gazprombank corporate art collection were inspired by the Maxim Gorky Drama Theatre, a unique architectural monument in Sergey Sapozhnikov’s hometown. Designed by architects Vladimir Shchuko and Vladimir Gelfreikh in 1930, this masterpiece of Russian constructivism and a landmark in Rostov-on-the-Don’s cityscape was built in the impressive form of a tractor. The artist was equally inspired by the building’s symbolic existence as well as its history and transformation in time. All this led Sapozhnikov to the creation of a complex, multi-faceted project. Taking the building’s current shape and its exciting history as a starting point, he developed a multi-layered drama-ridden narrative that invokes the site’s genius loci and recreates the poetics of the performance space which in itself was a mirror of utopias and regenerations.