Dmitri Prigov’s Shimmering Alchemies

Conceptual artist Dmitri Prigov’s work often features blots of dense, inky darkness. Several scholars have discussed these darknesses as symbols of a metaphysical presence or primal chaos that resists signification. I argue that they represent direct allusions to the alchemical concept of “nigredo”. In alchemy, the “nigredo” is a cluster of darkness, both material and spiritual, that is necessary to begin the work of alchemical transfiguration. I interpret Prigov’s visual art and his novel Live in Moscow (2000) as engaging this alchemical motif in order to imagine a shimmering sacred: debased by alchemy but thereby liberated from splitting the world into the meager real and the metaphysical beyond. While many artists involved in Prigov’s circle made a point of mocking and ironizing art preoccupied with the sacred and metaphysics, through his darkness and his concept of shimmering Prigov is able to explore the lofty topic by debasing it with alchemy.