2017–2022
Installation ‘Venets’
Radioplay ‘Radio Venets: The Price of The Ideal’
№ 267, 270, 271 • Installation, Radioplay
Radioplay ‘Radio Venets: The Price of The Ideal’
№ 267, 270, 271 • Installation, Radioplay
In an attempt to explore the concept of the “ideal” and the mechanisms of its production in the USSR, the artist focuses on the “Venets” hotel. Opened in 1970 alongside the adjacent Lenin Memorial, this 23-story hotel became the tallest in the country, a deliberate decision to commemorate Lenin’s centennial in his birthplace, Ulyanovsk.
Gluschenko spent nearly three weeks living in the hotel, staying one day on each floor. During this time, he worked in local archives, met with photographers and journalists, interviewed former hotel staff, and studied documents from the party archives. The culmination of this research was a 320-page book in English titled Venets: Welcome to The Ideal.
For the Venice exhibition, the artist recreated an exact replica of a three-room luxury suite. With this gesture, he initiated a dialogue with the curators, placing an ordinary room from the Ulyanovsk hotel alongside El Lissitzky’s Dresden Room, Alexander Rodchenko’s Workers’ Club, and Gustav Klutsis’ kiosk, all of which were also featured at the exhibition.
Gluschenko approached the reconstruction of this little-known, essentially domestic space with the same meticulousness as his colleagues working with world heritage artifacts. Photographs of the rooms from various angles, architectural floor plans, and precise measurements of the room, as well as preserved objects, were gathered from the archives. In collaboration with the architects from the “Mel” studio, an architectural project was developed. The furniture was crafted by woodworkers from the workshop “Stameska,” ensuring that every object was impeccably made and fully functional.
This project was awarded the Marion-Ermer Prize (Leipzig, 2018) and nominated for the Kandinsky Prize (Moscow, 2019). Its accompanying publication received the Deutsche Architekturmuseum Architectural Book Award, the Grand Prix at the Zhar-Kniga Book Design Competition, and an Honorary Mention at Best Book Design from All Over The World at Stiftung Buchkunst. In 2021, the artist reissued the book in Russian in a novel-newspaper format. The Tuning-3 exhibition at GES–2 was awarded Exhibition of the Year at the XI Art Newspaper Russia Prize.
Gluschenko spent nearly three weeks living in the hotel, staying one day on each floor. During this time, he worked in local archives, met with photographers and journalists, interviewed former hotel staff, and studied documents from the party archives. The culmination of this research was a 320-page book in English titled Venets: Welcome to The Ideal.
For the Venice exhibition, the artist recreated an exact replica of a three-room luxury suite. With this gesture, he initiated a dialogue with the curators, placing an ordinary room from the Ulyanovsk hotel alongside El Lissitzky’s Dresden Room, Alexander Rodchenko’s Workers’ Club, and Gustav Klutsis’ kiosk, all of which were also featured at the exhibition.
Gluschenko approached the reconstruction of this little-known, essentially domestic space with the same meticulousness as his colleagues working with world heritage artifacts. Photographs of the rooms from various angles, architectural floor plans, and precise measurements of the room, as well as preserved objects, were gathered from the archives. In collaboration with the architects from the “Mel” studio, an architectural project was developed. The furniture was crafted by woodworkers from the workshop “Stameska,” ensuring that every object was impeccably made and fully functional.
This project was awarded the Marion-Ermer Prize (Leipzig, 2018) and nominated for the Kandinsky Prize (Moscow, 2019). Its accompanying publication received the Deutsche Architekturmuseum Architectural Book Award, the Grand Prix at the Zhar-Kniga Book Design Competition, and an Honorary Mention at Best Book Design from All Over The World at Stiftung Buchkunst. In 2021, the artist reissued the book in Russian in a novel-newspaper format. The Tuning-3 exhibition at GES–2 was awarded Exhibition of the Year at the XI Art Newspaper Russia Prize.
Fig. 6. Radio Venets: The Price of The Ideal. 57 min 47 sec
In the radio play, fragments from the following books were used: His Name Was Babai by Gennady Demochkin, Leaders of Provincial Scale by Jean Mindubaev, and autobiographies by Gennady Antsiferov, Lev Netsvetaev, and Vladimir Filimonov. Articles from the newspapers Ulyanovskaya Pravda, Ulyanovsky Komsomolets, and the journal Architecture of the USSR were also included, as well as specially recorded interviews with Lyubov Kolesnikova and Lev Netsvetaev.
Voice actors: Allina Sineva and Alexander Chernyshev
Sound recording engineer: Dmitry Martynov
Editor: Kirill Gluschenko
Voice actors: Allina Sineva and Alexander Chernyshev
Sound recording engineer: Dmitry Martynov
Editor: Kirill Gluschenko
Fig. 9. Venets. Introduction. 9 min 9 sec
“...Moscow train arrives in Ulyanovsk early in the morning. These days, the city greets you with bustling streets and squares, crimson leaves in the parks and gardens that have yet to fall, mirrored shop windows, and numerous new buildings. One of the most characteristic features of present-day Ulyanovsk is the tower cranes and scaffolding.”
Venets. Welcome to the Ideal. Introduction
Voice actor: A. Chernyshov. Text: K. Gluschenko.
Photos from the State Archive of Modern History of the Ulyanovsk Region, OGAUK Lenin Memorial, photo agencies of MIA “Russia Today”, TASS photo agency, archives of L. Netsvetaev, M. Kapitonov, and the “Venets” hotel, as well as photographer B. Telnov.
Venets. Welcome to the Ideal. Introduction
Voice actor: A. Chernyshov. Text: K. Gluschenko.
Photos from the State Archive of Modern History of the Ulyanovsk Region, OGAUK Lenin Memorial, photo agencies of MIA “Russia Today”, TASS photo agency, archives of L. Netsvetaev, M. Kapitonov, and the “Venets” hotel, as well as photographer B. Telnov.
Fig. 13. Installation’s furniture specification
Fig. 14. Poster ‘Radio Venets. Price of the Ideal’Fig. 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12: Photography Vitaliy Selin, model Xenia Dubrovskaya,
art direction, set design and styling Kirill Gluschenko
art direction, set design and styling Kirill Gluschenko