Friday (from A. Aksinin’s Birthday Cards Series)
Alexander Aksinin
Basic information
- ID
- Г-IV-4084
- Author
- Alexander Aksinin
- Name
- Friday (from A. Aksinin’s Birthday Cards Series)
- Date of creation
- 1981
- Technique
- etching
- Material
- imprint on paper
- Dimensions (height x width, cm)
- 9.2 x 13.1
Additionally
- Type
- printmaking
- Provenance
- Courtesy of V. Onusaitis, 1987
Information about author
Object description
The creative world of Alexander Aksinin is characterized by a condensed intellectual atmosphere, which is full of "codes of aesthetic information". Numerous etchings by Aksinin are miniature "philosophical essays" embodied in complex systems of visual as well as literary and verbal texts.
This is an etching from A. Aksinin’s Birthday Cards series. Each year, on October 2, the artist created a "gift" etching card or sometimes two different ones for his birthday and gave prints to his friends. He began the tradition in 1976 and continued it every year from 1979 to 1984.
In the etching of this series dated 1981, the artist uses the "image" of a safety razor blade – the so-called "gillette", which has appeared in many of his works since 1977. For example, in one of his works, Alexander Aksinin wrote the text of Engelina Buriakovska's story "Occam's Razor" – a razor that cuts off all that is unnecessary – on the planes of two blades. In addition, the razor (blade) became a symbol of informal youth (hippies and punks), who often wore it as a pendant on a chain.
A dark silhouette of the blade is fixed in the horizontal oval, along which a flock of other "gillettes" "floats". Instead, an oval structure in the shape of an elongated eye with a pupil forms the vertical dominant, to which two pairs of long tubular handrails are directed on both sides. Over this structure hangs an oval "nimbus" with a blade-shaped slit. The artist used it as an association with a shocking scene from Luis Buñuel's film "Andalusian Dog", in which the blade cuts the eye. Under the vertical oval structure, two anthropomorphic blades with eyes, mouths, and hands are joined together. These so-called duplicates serve as the basic images in some of Alexander Aksinin’s works. At the bottom, between that pair is the sign of Venus placed in the middle of a circle marking. Above the sign and around the circle, there is an inscription "A. AKSININ FRIDAY" meaning that the artist's birthday was on Friday in 1981. Around the circle on the left there is a small author's monogram in the form of a regular and mirrored upwards letter "A", with the numbers 19 and 81 on its both sides. Small balls with some sharp spikes appearing here and there cover the background of the circle, a pair of blades, and the top of the pupil of an oval design as well as a large oval outside the dark silhouette of the blade.
The author's concept was most likely influenced by the personality of King Camp Gillette (1855–1932), the science fiction writer and inventor of the first safe blade. He argued that all manufacturing should be concentrated in a single public corporation, and the people of the country should live in a single metropolis.
The "gillette" motif can be traced in several other artist’s etchings. The nimbus motif, reminiscent of a crown of thorns over skulls, appears in the final work of A. Aksinin’s Birthday Cards series (1984), which was completed six months before his death.
This is an etching from A. Aksinin’s Birthday Cards series. Each year, on October 2, the artist created a "gift" etching card or sometimes two different ones for his birthday and gave prints to his friends. He began the tradition in 1976 and continued it every year from 1979 to 1984.
In the etching of this series dated 1981, the artist uses the "image" of a safety razor blade – the so-called "gillette", which has appeared in many of his works since 1977. For example, in one of his works, Alexander Aksinin wrote the text of Engelina Buriakovska's story "Occam's Razor" – a razor that cuts off all that is unnecessary – on the planes of two blades. In addition, the razor (blade) became a symbol of informal youth (hippies and punks), who often wore it as a pendant on a chain.
A dark silhouette of the blade is fixed in the horizontal oval, along which a flock of other "gillettes" "floats". Instead, an oval structure in the shape of an elongated eye with a pupil forms the vertical dominant, to which two pairs of long tubular handrails are directed on both sides. Over this structure hangs an oval "nimbus" with a blade-shaped slit. The artist used it as an association with a shocking scene from Luis Buñuel's film "Andalusian Dog", in which the blade cuts the eye. Under the vertical oval structure, two anthropomorphic blades with eyes, mouths, and hands are joined together. These so-called duplicates serve as the basic images in some of Alexander Aksinin’s works. At the bottom, between that pair is the sign of Venus placed in the middle of a circle marking. Above the sign and around the circle, there is an inscription "A. AKSININ FRIDAY" meaning that the artist's birthday was on Friday in 1981. Around the circle on the left there is a small author's monogram in the form of a regular and mirrored upwards letter "A", with the numbers 19 and 81 on its both sides. Small balls with some sharp spikes appearing here and there cover the background of the circle, a pair of blades, and the top of the pupil of an oval design as well as a large oval outside the dark silhouette of the blade.
The author's concept was most likely influenced by the personality of King Camp Gillette (1855–1932), the science fiction writer and inventor of the first safe blade. He argued that all manufacturing should be concentrated in a single public corporation, and the people of the country should live in a single metropolis.
The "gillette" motif can be traced in several other artist’s etchings. The nimbus motif, reminiscent of a crown of thorns over skulls, appears in the final work of A. Aksinin’s Birthday Cards series (1984), which was completed six months before his death.
