“Air Arctic” by Evgeny Strelkov: Landscapes of Imagination in an Artist’s Book

Evgeny Mikhailovich Strelkov is a Russian poet, essayist, and graphic designer, one of the most important figures in the history of Russian artist’s books from the 1990s to 2010s. However, only general approaches to his work have been outlined so far. The relevance of this article lies in its monographic analysis of the first of his artist’s books, and its novelty lies in its exploration of the publication’s artistic characteristics through its treatment of the category of space. The article’s goal is to explore the principles of interrelationship between three types of space in “Air Arctic”: the artistic space of the text, the symbolic form of the text as space, and the book as a spatial construct. Strelkov’s artistic project, “Air Arctic”, is a metaphor for another world, to which the artist aspires, drawing close to the images of outstanding travelers and technicians. The book’s artistic space is linked to modernist myths of the pole and aeronautics, which combine movement toward an imaginary limit with an act of transcendence, overcoming the inertia of earthly existence and triumph over human nature. In the plot development of the book, this space is associated with the topoi of “point”, “spot” and “u-topos”. The text’s symbolic form as space develops the book’s motifs, evoking associations with the boundless “Arctic” expanses. The book as space is intended to bring together the traveler-poet and the traveler-reader: its very form emphasizes the “entrance” to and “exit” from the “polar” world, emphasizing the importance of orientation within its “meridians” and expanses. The book is thus constructed as a complex artistic ensemble, the various aspects of which are linked by associative parallels. The conclusions drawn can be used in the analysis of other books by E. Strelkov, in the study of the creative practices of artists of the 1990s and 2010s who worked in the genre of the artist’s book, as well as in the development of a theory of the artist’s book as a synthetic form.