RUS


M² (2025 - ...)

Plein air (2025 - ...)

Invisible (2019 - ...)

— Message for artists

— Ascension

— Trace

— Recursion

— Sunrise in front of the Calvary

— Observer

— Verge

— Self portrait

— The Realm of Morpheus

— Spaces

— The Celestial


Other (2019 - ...)
Projects:

"m²" 2025
ready-made
“m²” is a series of works where the artwork becomes the space bounded by a square of 1 m². Anything that accidentally or intentionally enters this demarcated area (body, trash, air, shadow, car and other objects) becomes part of a artwork. By excluding forms that fall outside the designated boundaries, the series creates everything from simple dynamic installations to complex abstract forms.

Each work in the series is registered with the coordinates of its location:
  • 25.79450° N, 80.13370° W, Art Basel Miami Beach, Florida, USA, 12/5/2025
  • 55.756037° N, 37.665769° W, CCA Winzavod, Moscow, Russia, 12/9/2025
WATCH
"Plein air" 2025
ready-made
In my new project "Plein Air", I revisit familiar street art techniques, using my tag not as a standalone artwork, but as an attribution for objects I discover. It’s a kind of street art readymade, where each object—be it a landscape, building, tree, or urban detail—becomes my signed piece.

Instead of creating, I choose — marking objects of interest with my signature and thus fixing their new status. The signature becomes not just a marker, but an act of designation: from now on, this scene is my artwork. Photography serves merely as documentation.

As a trained painter, I see in this method a way to create painterly works without producing sketches or canvases that feel meaningless to me.
Invisible
project (2019 - ...)

In the art-project "Invisible", Ivany Gleb discusses about dependence of an artwork and a viewer creating special circumstances of artwork existence that untie the ones from a fact of a viewer, the creator and humanity being. These works display modernity spirit via striving to autonomy and independence of an artwork and viewer.

Gleb actualizes an issue of dependence of art nowadays and presence of a viewer, because art was created by human exactly. That's why an object called "art" by human becomes the art. Therefore, if there is no viewer, no human - there is no artwork.

The project is development of breaking up from a visual art theme and a discussion of existence of an artwork without a viewer essentially. Also rises a question what to be done next - under circumstances when, on the author's opinion, all possible forms of an image have been opened, all things to be crossed have been crossed and searching of new images has reached a dead end. Gleb suggests a solution: not only image rejection, but redefinition of an artwork generally.

By analogy with International System of Units, in there all of main units were untied from physical objects completely in 2019 and redefined via physical constants, here takes place redefinition of arts system - detaching of an artwork from a viewer and constituting of interaction between artistic elements inside the works.

A viewer of "Invisible" does not have an ability to see the artworks. The ones are created under such circumstances and for such circumstances in which things seeing by a viewer are not the artworks. The artworks thus arranged that a human has no ability to prove or refute the ones being. Under this circumstances, a fact of the artwork being does not depend on presence or absence of a viewer, because this fact does not change a status of the artwork.

Thus, a role of that one, who gave a status to an artwork and interact with it, transfers to artwork elements themselves and thereby unties art from a human. A viewer can join to the works, but not as an element of art interaction, creator or judge, only as an autonomous spectator. A human ability to imagine and ponder of work content is an important project element, because this is a part of redefinition of a viewer position and whole art system. Ideas of these works are reflection of time and art condition at this moment and transfer of time spirit itself, not the one's attributes.

Text: Vasily Kuznetsov
"Message for artists" 2025
paper and pen, 21 × 29,7 cm
"Ascension" 2025
silver casting, 64 × 55 × 22 mm
“Ascension” is a sculpture created and cast in the purest silver under conditions inaccessible to third parties. Later encased in a block of concrete, the work is exhibited with water dripping onto it, gradually eroding the concrete and revealing the sculpture to the world.

The fundamental indeterminacy of the moment of appearance and contact—whether in decades, centuries, or never—places the work in a state of superposition, where the determining factor becomes the influence of the environment and the gradual disintegration of the material.

The work “Ascension” is dedicated to all creators who were ahead of their time.
WATCH
"Trace" 2025
paper/water
A series of graphic works created using water and paper.

In the process of creation, the artist produces tonal compositions that emerge from soaking thin paper, regulating the tone through the gradual diffusion and drying of the material. Ultimately, the creator forms a controlled image, which is finally exhibited in a completely dried state. The final form of the work is a fully dried, deformed sheet whose texture—the complex relief of folds and accretions—serves as an imprint of the material's evaporation and shrinkage.

The potential viewer can never see the compositions as drawn by the author, able only to observe their "trace." The works remain inaccessible to direct sight, yet they are present—like casts preserving their original essence.
"Recursion" 2024
marble, 1,8 × 1 × 0,75 mm
"Recursion" is a sculpture created from a single particle placed in a heap of sand. The work is forever lost to our eyes, yet it still exists. Perhaps it visually engages with the viewer, but we will never know.

The title of the work suggests that it is part of the infinite repetition of the same within itself. A grain of sand lost in a heap of sand is as insignificant to humans as a human on the scale of a planet, a planet on the scale of a system, and a system on the scale of a galaxy, and so on. An analogy can be drawn to the immaterial world as well. Even if there are gods, higher beings, or extraterrestrial civilizations, we may be as insignificant to them as an individual grain of sand is to us. Perhaps we are so small that we do not exist at all. Or perhaps, being so tiny, we still interact with our observers, but neither they nor we are aware of it.

As pessimistic as the above may seem, the knowledge or belief that this grain of sand is in the rest of the heap of sand gives meaning to the entire heap. Just as a needle gives meaning to a haystack, or a meteorite brings life to a barren planet.

Text: Vasily Kuznetsov
"Sunrise in front of the Calvary" 2021
armored concrete/oil, 85 × 83 × 55 cm
An image of exhausted crucified Christ is a symbol of whole European culture. Painting on the sculpture is a consequence of how the author to feel cold, flows of morning wind and light reflecting from the body and the cross. The sculpture of crucified Jesus itself is not the artwork, it's only a tool which keeps traces of the artwork. The artwork is the landscape that unveils in front of crucified Christ. Beams of sunrise barely have touched Christ's eyelids and He has slightly opened his eyes to look at.

Artistic interaction in the work is between the landscape, which can be only envisioned, and Christ being in moment that beams dropped on His face. A viewer cannot behold the landscape and can only envision what Jesus sees. There is no artistic interaction between a viewer and the artwork since it's replaced the interaction between the landscape and Christ.

Text: Vasily Kuznetsov
"Observer" 2025
total installation
The "observer" is the space of the exposition, in the center of which there is a spherical object.

This object reproduces the reflection of the surrounding works and interior of pictorial means, acting as an observer.

The state of desolation and lifelessness is captured by the ball and is not disturbed by the appearance of a person in space.
WATCH
"Verge" 2019 - 2021
canvas/oil, 300 × 400 cm
«Verge» is represented as a canvas turned away from its environment. The artwork initially conceived to exhibit backside and nobody, except the author, is going to see that one. Nevertheless, Gleb has created the one for three years to bring it to perfection. The painting is composed the way of having meaning only if this artwork is trying to interact with environment behind, which hides from that one.

«Verge» is created with intention to «cognition». It has no material tools for this act, the artwork interacts with the environment immaterially. We can make an analogy of looking for the eternal questions, which reflect in religious, sciences and cultures.

An artistic contact between the artwork and a viewer replaces an artistic interaction between the work and the world around. The backside of the canvas is not an artwork, the backside contains the author's inscriptions, patches, a crosspiece of a stretcher bar, turned up the ends of fabric. This is an ordinary backside of a canvas. An external viewer can only imagine the painting itself, think over striving of the one to connection with unreachable space. A human also can become a part of this invisible world.

Text: Vasily Kuznetsov
"Self portrait" 2020
canvas/oil/cloth, 90 × 205 cm
The work is reasoning of self-positioning in outside. Whatever it is an action, spoken word, written book or, as in this case, self portrait. Attention focuses on «private» and «public» and their interrelation. Interact with the artwork as with «the Other», we can only read up on outside, «public» casing, but interior content remains be hidden. Here comes into force an ability to fill in, imagine what can be interior side of an object. But that filled in image is not the true, it is true only for outside world, but not for interior one. When a human releases anything from the one's interior world to outside - the one releases as much as the one considers acceptable to release, even for a personal dairy, self-study and self-reflection. Therefore, a human's true personality, what the one keeps inside, forever remains in there.

Interior side of the artwork does not depend on interaction with outside world. It is autonomous. Physical being of the interiority is proof of a fact it's being, without evaluative sight of others. An act of artistic interaction between two layers of the work stay unchangeable regardless of environment.

Text: Vasily Kuznetsov
"The Realm of Morpheus" 2025
sleep, 4 hours 45 minutes
In my new work The Realm of Morpheus, I continue a radical experiment in deconstructing the connection between viewer and artwork. On screen — myself, asleep. My nearly five-hour sleep becomes an alchemical crucible in which the unconscious creates the piece, while the conscious observes. Yet the viewer only has access to the echo of this communication: fragments of breath, flickers of eyelids, random gestures and poses. Not the dream itself, but its outer shell.

I keep probing the limits of perception, crafting works where the artwork either exists in a state of superposition or within a realm inaccessible to humans. In The Realm of Morpheus, dreaming becomes a metaphor for simulation, and simulation — a question about the nature of existence. What if our world is the dream of some Creator, and my sleep — just another layer in an endless matryoshka of simulations?

The piece also references Nick Bostrom’s simulation hypothesis, where reality is the result of computations by a higher intelligence. But I treat "computation" as "dreaming," turning to ancient myths in which worlds are born from a god’s slumber. I ask myself: aren’t all our attempts to understand reality merely interpretations of someone else’s dreams?

The video documentation of sleep, in turn, is my reflection on the elusiveness and inaccessibility of cosmic order. The technology I chose is not only a tool but a metaphor: the digital image of my sleeping body, composed of pixels and code, deepens the theme set by the work. When the final stage of sleep ends and I awaken — the piece vanishes, posing one last question:
"What if our reality, too, can disappear in an instant?"
WATCH
"Spaces", 2021
mirrors/wood, 275 × 160 cm
Mirrors standing entirely close to each other cannot tell a viewer anything, they can interact only to each other. Infinitely reflecting themselves, they infinitely communicate. Darkness enclosed between the mirrors does not enable them to interact by the main ordinary ways. Here the interaction takes place a metaphysical feature and it starts to transcend its material casing. The mirrors do not have a gap between, but the ones hypothetically create infinite space within, splits the whole universe into two parts.

An ability of imagination affords a viewer to envision what can happen inside the mirrors. A human can make an analogy with oneself as bonding of two people having no bodily boundaries and made inner comprehension of each other. Also, the closer people's comprehension gets, the more the people take features of each other. Thus, they reflect each other bigger.

Text: Vasily Kuznetsov
"The Celestial", 2019
canvas/oil, 120 × 120 cm
This is Gleb's transitional work that initiates thinking of independence of an artwork. Work's composition is arranged to make feeling of fragmentation of big movement which is outside the canvas and color gradient and symbolism create logic of how to be looked the center and its outside-the-canvas elements.

The important element of the work is color symbolism that is at intersection of psychological and cultural meaning. If light appears in front of the work, the center starts to shine revealing the truth and eclipsing all other parts.
The work still interacts with a viewer and raises the task of to create understandable, obvious movement to block a path and to force a viewer to look into the barrier, to envision farther movement by oneself. But the work starts to reflect those ideas which changed the author's creativity direction fundamentally.

«The Celestial» reflects a stream of any humanity activities from the moment of an idea appeared, its development and studying to dead end and crisis. Also it shows us possible exit being at the opposite, unobvious side, but revealing a path where cognition moved to.

Text: Vasily Kuznetsov
Другое
(2019 - ...)
"13.09.2024" 2024
paper and pen, 29,7 × 21 cm
Normally, I don’t create personal works and try to produce art on large-scale themes, separate from subjective interpretations. But recently, I came to the conclusion that my life is too closely connected to my works to separate them from each other. I decided to launch a series of diary works.

The artwork “13.09.2024” was created during the darkest period of my life so far. Towards the end of that period, I found the strength and desire to create some meaningful work in order to release and capture what was hidden, but I was so devastated that all I could produce was this work. Without meaning, without a title, without a purpose, just like my state at that time.

Bottomless, hopeless, tangled emptiness in a vacuum.
"Self portrait" 2019
canvas/oil, 150 × 120 cm
This work is about interaction of dynamic and changeless, fleeting and infinite, human world and the world of things. Faceless image of the author reflected on the mirror tells us, on the one hand, about dynamics of human life, a human is not completed at any moment of its existence. On the other hand, it tells us that anyone can be at the place the author is. This is not a personal story, this is fate of whole humanity. The world of things is more durable and stable than human world. A sink, writings on tiles, a mirror. All these elements were before and are going to be after presence of a human in this room. A human appear temporarily as a ghost and try to leave the one's own trace in the world of things, that human wants to say «I exist» or «I existed». There is an element that tells us of it in «Self-portrait». The element is reflection of the man standing very close to the sink, but there is no one against the sink in reality. There is only a canvas with a sketch at the right corner - attempt to leave a trace.
This work appeared in Internet many times, particularly it does in well-known Russian imageboard «Dvach» as an example of hard life in Russia.

Text: Vasily Kuznetsov
Contacts
+7 983 443 48 85
glebivany@gmail.com
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