Dima’s pendulum of life swung between the cozy, warm, kind world of home and the workshops of his father and other artists, where the tension of drama, the artist’s struggle with the surrounding world hung in the air, where there was an unclear but such a bright feeling of creativity, unknown, attractive worlds. And… the centripetal force of the creative environment carried him into his own orbit. He was also lucky with teachers – the force field of Sergey Anufriev and Alexander Roitburd very quickly shaped his artistic thinking, and joint creativity with talented peers – Arkady Nasonov and Dima Ligeiros created their own special space. Without possessing his father’s power, he began to seek other creative qualities in himself, his own themes, images, characters, his own aesthetics, anti-aesthetics, permeated with the feeling of the end of the century. Dima quickly passed through his pink, blue periods, his Chagall. These are works where on a large canvas space there is almost nothing, only the feeling of a surge, turmoil, subconscious babble of characters.
Minimalism of color and form does not exclude postmodern semantic and figurative tension. Dima does not build, like his father, his own picture of the world, he uses a ready-made picture of art, or rather, its giant mosaic fresco, he picks out fragments from it and fuses incompatible elements into multidimensional complex subordinate phrases.
Earlier, the essence of creativity was spoken of as the state of the soul. Now it is defined by the way of life, its content.
Therefore, the language of psychotechnics abounds with such concepts as – “distillation of meanings,” “reaction – action,” “recreation – creation,” “celestial mechanics,”
“light-color discus,” “virology of meanings,” “atmospheric logic,” etc. And these are not just beautiful words, but material for work. Dima and his comrades create the “Laboratory of Meanings,” the “Ether Laboratory,” the “Cloud Commission.” In the installations, exhibitions of these laboratories, color-light objects – flashing, pulsating in violet, pink flashes, with green light emerging from within – create their own special visual Morse-Morse alphabet, signals of “semantic immersions”…
Laboratory assistant of the “Institute of Meanings,” commissioner of the “Cloud Commission” – Dmitry Dulfan does not give definitions, he asks questions. This is not a game with archetypes, with mythology, rather, it is the development of new meanings that may lead us to the creation of a New Myth. Diagnosis of verbal reality, which seemingly opens other visual and literary spaces extending into general and individual spaces of consciousness…
He forms his creative space by mystifying the reality of his workshop. In it, glowing flowers began to bloom, thin columns shimmered with light, mysterious creatures pulsated. The simple object “Blooming Buddha” grows into a whole greenhouse – “Transflora,” and complex, ambiguous installations turn into simple but more expressive objects.
In Dmitry Dulfan’s latest works, the desire to master the Moscow direction – “virtuality by hand” – becomes increasingly apparent. Moscow avant-gardists, well aware of the problems of contemporary Western art and the possibilities of modern Western technologies, also understand the absolute impossibility of this here. And naturally, there arises a desire to create something significant with minimal means, to oppose the West with a replacement of new technologies by a subtle correlation of Ideas with strange, unusual means of expression in a modern language, avoiding Western heaviness and seriousness. Wanting to avoid the expression language prevailing over the idea, Dima seeks a way out of the current fashionable trends of contemporary art. His projects can be attributed to the ideas of “Feng Shui,” they are feasible in open and closed spaces.
For now, Dima is growing his flowers. It is interesting what the fruits will be?
An unpretentious old song comes to mind: “Oh, little apple, where are you rolling, if you get into my mouth – you won’t come back!” – Who sings this? – The Muse? Fate? The cunning Parca? – Or the Art of Art…Comment type: Published comment
Author: Margarita Zharkova
Bibliography:
Zharkova M. Two Dulfans / M. Zharkova // Portfolio: Art of Odessa in the 1990s: Odessa. – Center for Contemporary Art “Tirs”. – 1999. – P.200-2002
Sources: Zharkova M. Two Dulfans / M. Zharkova // Portfolio: Art of Odessa in the 1990s: Odessa. – Center for Contemporary Art “Tirs”. – 1999. – P.200-2002
