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Aidyn Zeinalov
Aidyn Zeinalov
Miscellaneous Sculptures (1998-2024)
Aidyn Zeinalov’s career as a sculptor was sealed when he still was a little boy who enthusiastically modeled animals and birds, discovering for himself the many possibilities that plastic arts have to offer.
Zeinalov’s connection to Egypt is a personal one – he lived there with his parents as a kid with his father working as a diplomat; echoes of his childhood impressions still appear in his works. Like the half-naked pharaohs and priests of Ancient Egypt, his early piece The Walker makes a step forward without lifting his feet off the ground, with his arms hanging down alongside the body. The figure is walking, and yet it looks completely static. However, whereas traditional Egyptian art is devoid of pronounced emotions, with but a faint smile playing across the mouths of gods and people, Zeinalov’s The Walker appears to grimace, baring a row of regular teeth. Interestingly, the Egyptians often highlighted the eyes in their sculptures, which was explained by their sacred beliefs. Here, however, the focus is not on the eyes, for they are barely outlined, but rather on the open mouth, an emphasis that stirs up a feeling of unease characteristic of our times.
Zeinalov’s enthusiasm for ancient Egypt was followed by an interest in classical antiquity. This interest is also evident in his early works; for instance, his 2001 terracotta composition Hairdresser’s Salon was featured at the exhibition Traces in the Labyrinth, exploring images of antiquity in contemporary Russian art (Moscow Museum of Modern Art, 2024). The figures in this piece resemble surviving fragments of ancient Greek pedimental sculptures, which could have once been a single group adorning a tympanum of an ancient Greek temple.
Installed on metal rods, these fragments evoke displays in museums of classical art, where ruined remnants of ancient sculptures are showcased in a similar way. The structure at the base of the composition and the mesh backdrop are reminiscent of museum storage rooms.
Throughout his career, Zeinalov has repeatedly used found objects in his compositions. Thus, in his sculpture Girl with a Pot (2002, MMOMA), a meticulously modeled plaster figure of a young woman sits on a real chair, holding a real fork and spoon. Likewise, in Girl with a Bowl, a bronze bowl is placed under the left breast of a terracotta female torso. Later, the artist began casting real objects in bronze, making what could be described as a sculptural still life, quite a rare genre in contemporary art.
Zeinalov’s connection to Egypt is a personal one – he lived there with his parents as a kid with his father working as a diplomat; echoes of his childhood impressions still appear in his works. Like the half-naked pharaohs and priests of Ancient Egypt, his early piece The Walker makes a step forward without lifting his feet off the ground, with his arms hanging down alongside the body. The figure is walking, and yet it looks completely static. However, whereas traditional Egyptian art is devoid of pronounced emotions, with but a faint smile playing across the mouths of gods and people, Zeinalov’s The Walker appears to grimace, baring a row of regular teeth. Interestingly, the Egyptians often highlighted the eyes in their sculptures, which was explained by their sacred beliefs. Here, however, the focus is not on the eyes, for they are barely outlined, but rather on the open mouth, an emphasis that stirs up a feeling of unease characteristic of our times.
Zeinalov’s enthusiasm for ancient Egypt was followed by an interest in classical antiquity. This interest is also evident in his early works; for instance, his 2001 terracotta composition Hairdresser’s Salon was featured at the exhibition Traces in the Labyrinth, exploring images of antiquity in contemporary Russian art (Moscow Museum of Modern Art, 2024). The figures in this piece resemble surviving fragments of ancient Greek pedimental sculptures, which could have once been a single group adorning a tympanum of an ancient Greek temple.
Installed on metal rods, these fragments evoke displays in museums of classical art, where ruined remnants of ancient sculptures are showcased in a similar way. The structure at the base of the composition and the mesh backdrop are reminiscent of museum storage rooms.
Throughout his career, Zeinalov has repeatedly used found objects in his compositions. Thus, in his sculpture Girl with a Pot (2002, MMOMA), a meticulously modeled plaster figure of a young woman sits on a real chair, holding a real fork and spoon. Likewise, in Girl with a Bowl, a bronze bowl is placed under the left breast of a terracotta female torso. Later, the artist began casting real objects in bronze, making what could be described as a sculptural still life, quite a rare genre in contemporary art.
