русская версия

The Russian Museum

About Exhibitions Collections Visitor info Shop Málaga branch Publications Events

Mark Wallinger. Threshold to the Kingdom
(An exhibition held in the context of PROSMOTR Festival of Video Art) (The Ludwig Museum in the Russian Museum)

19 November 2003 - 18 January 2004
The Mikhailovsky Castle

Painter, sculptor, and videoartist, Mark Wallinger is on of the most famous modern British artists. He belongs to the generation of Young British Artists. "Threshold to the Kingdom" is a slowed video-projection shot at the arrivals airport gate. Accompanied with the soundtrack of Allegri's Miserere, automatic doors open and close slowly letting through arriving passengers and cockpit personnel. During eleven minutes, those who have arrived overpass -individually and in groups - the official border between the heavens and the earth. Righteous men descend to the earth (from neutral no-man to state controlled territory). They are not deprived of human emotions: joy of meeting, tiredness, confusion. Airport gates, made of opaque reflective glass, appear to be gates to heaven; an airport employee, sitting quietly at the table to the left of the gates, - apostle Peter, who looks after heavens' messengers and let them in to the Paradise; a table lamp - biblical light.