Igor Samolet

The large-scale installation "Splash" by Igor Samolet will serve as a visual landmark for the fair—a nine-meter "lighthouse" amidst the swift, ever-changing, and colorful waves of the fairgoing crowd. The work consists of three parts and presents a symbolic depiction of the life cycle of an artistic idea: from its emergence and crystallization into a work of art, to its release through the dynamics of buying and selling. At its core lies the vulnerable position of the artist within the contemporary art system—the simultaneous need to create, present, explain, and let go of one's own work.

"Splash" will invite viewers not merely to observe, but to become part of this process by engaging directly with the installation. Through play and participation, Samolet's work raises the question of where the boundary lies between artistic expression and its transformation into a market object, and how the artist's relationship to their own work shifts in that very moment.

Igor Samolet is a Russian artist born in 1984 in Kotlas. He graduated from Syktyvkar State University with a degree in graphic design and the Rodchenko Moscow School of Photography and Multimedia. He works on the border between photography and installation.