On two white bases conceived as pages of a book, a few rusty nails form a mysterious script. Multiple meanings accompany nearly all of Peter Belyi’s projects: from forgotten archaic languages to Günther Uecker’s nail, from Arabic script to piles of nails abandoned in a shed.
The nails are collected by the artist from various locations and carry with them a material memory: some were extracted from a plank in the barracks of the Perm gulag, others were found in an abandoned building in St. Petersburg. They resemble the nails that crucified Jesus. And in the crypt, a book lies open before the body of Christ taken down from the cross. That book is the very body of Christ itself, transformed into a text upon which the violence and tragedies of history are inscribed. That book challenges us to confront the senselessness of violence. That illegible writing is like a bewildering cry asking why one brother kills another brother.
Ph Luca Casonato