Russian artist Nikas Safronov’s India debut with immersive AI art marks new era in cultural diplomacy

Last month, pursuing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit, celebrated modern artist Nikas Safronov debuted successful India with a solo amusement featuring implicit 100 artworks. His immersive accumulation Dream Vision gave the Lalit Kala Akademi successful Delhi a makeover. Think life-sized sculptural elephants, coloured red, blue, achromatic and black; projection mapping; paintings that determination with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI); and ample artificial flowers that unfastened and close, emitting a caller fragrance.

In what was rather an antithetic show for creation exhibitions successful India, radical waited successful agelong queues to get a glimpse of the one-of-a-kind sensorial experience. According to media reports, the amusement drew an estimated 560,000 visitors implicit a fortnight. Now, the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) successful Mumbai is getting the aforesaid attraction till January 15, showcasing 45 paintings. Between Marilyn Monroe and goddess Lakshmi flanked by 2 elephants, drawback your creator reflection successful an AI-powered “neuro-mirror”. Sail down the stream Ganga with Lord Shiva oregon witnesser the beauteous national of Ganga successful his dreadlocks arsenic the paintings travel live connected your telephone aft you scan the QR code. 

Safronov’s paintings bring unneurotic the disciplines of Renaissance benignant with modern flair, astir creating a clip capsule with his art. While his buildings are stately and the tympanums (the recessed aboveground supra a doorway) high, rooted successful Classical art, his figures are laced with realism. The works connected amusement span cardinal phases of his career and trace the improvement of his dream-like creator language. Handy QR codes placed alongside the paintings help transform them into multimedia experiences, with spatial dependable and light-touch AI elements.

Soft powerfulness of taste diplomacy

At a clip when Russia is still at warfare with Ukraine, Safronov’s debut in India is simply a people of taste diplomacy. Widely regarded arsenic Russia’s astir salient modern artist, he grew up successful the Soviet Union — with its state-sponsored propaganda creation of Socialist Realism — but veered towards creating his ain unsocial creator language. He marries classical painterly subject with surreal imagery, which harks backmost to Russian Symbolism successful creation that predates the Soviet era. “To statesman one’s vocation successful the Soviet epoch meant learning to talk indirectly,” Safronov said successful a caller interrogation to an Indian daily, “There were boundaries — sometimes rigid, sometimes hardly disposable — and wrong them an creator searched for his ain language.” Metaphors and symbolism became the upwind beneath his wings.

Safronov, 69, has built a vocation that spans decades and crosses continents. Known for his striking portraits, imaginative compositions, and distinctive surrealist-symbolic benignant helium calls “Dream Vision”, helium has held implicit 320 exhibitions worldwide. His enactment has often intersected with planetary diplomacy, reflecting his content that creation tin transcend governmental boundaries and foster knowing betwixt nations. Awarded the rubric ‘People’s Artist of Russia’, Safronov has painted implicit 50 heads of authorities and figures successful his career, including Donald Trump, Pope Francis, Elton John, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Although helium confessed that histrion Sophia Loren was his favourite muse, and 1 tin spot wherefore from the beauteous portraits helium has rendered of her. Another acquisition is watching the animated sharks aquatics astir a coating of Salvador Dalí arsenic 1 sits connected the famed lip-shaped counch that the creator recreated arsenic a tribute to 1 of his favourite Surrealist painters. 

Organised with the enactment of Rosneft, Russia’s starring lipid company, the two-city show is a taste marker of the high-profile gathering betwixt Modi and Putin and a renewing of aged diplomatic ties betwixt India and Russia. In his creator statement, Safronov says, “Visiting India is similar stepping into a satellite wherever civilization is live successful each street, each temple, and each festival. I anticipation my enactment tin service arsenic a span of knowing betwixt our countries.”

Symbols of India

His works successful India item landscapes, humanities sites, and mythological themes that person agelong inspired him. Paintings of the Taj Mahal, Varanasi, and different iconic Indian landmarks, on with interpretations of Hindu mythology and taste motifs, fig prominently. 

Safronov has said successful caller interviews that helium has been inspired by Hindu deities such as Lakshmi, Shiva and Brahma. And that dissimilar the “strict part betwixt the ineffable and the human” successful Western creation and ethos, helium recovered Indian gods imbued with “emotion, movement, and nature”. Just arsenic to him, “Dream Vision is not an flight from reality, but a mode of surviving done it”.

Dream Vision is showing till January 15, astatine NGMA, Fort, Mumbai.

The writer is simply a Delhi-based independent creation professional and curator.