Artist Georgy Kurasov
Georgy Kurasov was born in the USSR,
in what was then Leningrad. He still lives and works in the same place, but now
the country is Russia and the city is called St Petersburg. Without any effort
on his part whatsoever, Georgy seems to have emigrated from one surreal country
to another.
His native city was irrational from
the very moment of its foundation. Situated on the same latitude as the
southern shores of Alaska, on the swampy delta of the River Neva where no one
had ever settled before, this new capital city grew up on the very edge of a monstrous
empire.
Here on the totally flat surface
carved across by rivers, streams and canals, European architects laid out, like
images on a canvas, straight avenues, streets and squares, they built
Greco-Roman porticoes and Baroque palazzi, erected sculptures and fountains,
amidst something akin to permafrost where half the year is dominated by ice and
frost and the other half by damp and rain.
It is hard to find a more artificial
- more artistic - city.
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