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Alexander Valentinovich Molev

1952 - 2009

A longtime friend of the founders of Novamir.org and an exceptional artist, Alexander “Sasha” Molev, died in October, 2009.  

He was a great friend of ours for many years, an outstanding artist, and an all-around amazing human being.   The last time we saw him was about two years ago in October 2007 when he took us on a tour of The Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia.

As a friend, he is greatly missed.  As an artist, his loss is tragic.  His sculptures ranged from fun compositions, to political commentary, to quiet, contemplative pieces.

In contrast with his fellow Petersburg sculptors, Sasha Molev developed the line that was roughed out by the first wave of Russian avant-gardism.

Not only did he build upon the vast arsenal of expressive devices, methods accumulated by the artists of the ’left movement’ but he also enriched it with novelties and discoveries. One of his main achievements may well be the organic combination of the results of artistic experiments made by suprematist and cubist masters and the aesthetic principles held by the academic school. Such a situation is not accidental. Molev was well  equipped with his classical art education received at the Repin Institute and his experience as a trainee at the studio of the outstanding sculptor M.K Anikushin.

The rigid academic system taught him to strike the right and resolute intonation.

His basic vocabulary of plastic language stemmed from adequately-read various geometric figures, juxtaposed volumes of different sizes, the play of solid colorful planes and sharp edges. His first works, dating from the early ‘90s, were executed in the original style of ‘patched’ technique that presupposed the lining of the wooden base with non-ferrous metal lames.

His composition “Blind-Man’s-Buff”, which was featured at the city exhibition in 1991, was executed in this technique. Placed on a wide podium, was a massive blindfolded human figure donned in a cloak that swept the ground, bulky and angular,  with its arms outstretched like the wings of an aircraft (it is not accidental that its working name had been “Night Flight”), it alluded to the

political situation and became the symbol of an armored nuclear superpower at large, terrible in its unpredictability.

Later, during the Chechen enterprise, the Blind-Man’s-Bluff formed part of a series entitled “Case History”, which, beside ‘the seeker’, encompassed ‘the marcher’ (the “Right Wheel!” composition) and “the carrier” (“A Boat”).

During the second half of the ‘90s, with the social acuteness ebbing, his sculptures become contemplative and quiet. Works of this period clearly reveal the artist’s urge for decorativeness, color, terse and laconic ‘plastic phrases’ to enable one to bring sculptural representation to perfection and to the logic of a natural crystal.

The works that he produced at his studio were akin to precious, fine-faceted stones tinged with the light of the sky and the stars. Engaged in a quiet conversation with the Cosmos are “The Stargazer” (1998), “A Skater” (1999), “Beasts” (1997), “A Rat” (1996). They all – humans and animals alike – are engrossed in a pensive daze and agonizing suspense. They peer into eternity

and they scan the horizons for deliverance and peace. Together with his ‘enchanted’ characters he sincerely admired the grandeur and harmony of the universe but he never renounced worldly pleasures, he did not resort to mysticism and religious exaltation.

Molev loved life and took it in all its manifestations, he could be sly and jovial, ironic and happy-go-lucky. He could unfold to the spectator a series of luxurious, sparkling metallic facets of his still-lifes, could make his idol, Kazimir Malevich, somersault on the lawn in front of the Russian Museum (“The Red Commissar Bathing”, 1998), could stage an intermezzo showing tipsy habitués at pubs and bars (“Night-Birds”, 2000). He was brimming over with emotions that call forth new plastic ideas, bringing to life novel original works that are full of light, goodness and joy.

His works belong to the State Russian Museum, St Petersburg, the collection of contemporary Russian art at the Manège Central Exhibition Hall, St Petersburg, Vologda Regional Picture Gallery; and private collections in Russia, Sweden, Yugoslavia, Holland, Germany, the USA.

Alexander Molev