Timofei Radya wins first prize at New York art fair

Yekaterinburg street artist Timofei Radya has picked up first prize at the Cutlog art fair in New York for his installation of a pyramid of riot shields. Radya recreated Figure ♯1: Stability outside the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural Centre in New York using 40 police riot shields. Cutlog Founder Bruno Hadjadj said: “The Cutlog NY artist prize originated as an offshoot of the Cutlog Paris’s ARTE prize and aims at supporting rising art stars that produced remarkable art work within the fair.”

The pyramid was a recreation of a similar one made by Radya and his crew in a forest near Yekaterinburg last year. The group erected a giant house of cards from 55 riot shields topped with a throne-like chair. The pyramid, which took hours to assemble and then came crashing down in minutes, was a statement on the fragility of Russian might. Radya’s installation was accompanied by a video of the original performance, which took place in December 2012, a year after protesters in Moscow clashed with police over the results of the parliamentary elections.

“I remember after I saw the protesters clash with the police on Bolotnaya Square in December 2012 … I really didn’t like it at all,” said Radya. “That was a good example of a problem that cannot be solved with force. That using force is just a postponement of an actual necessary solution. That it’s just building a house of cards, which despite the strength of the materials has a very questionable stability.”

Cutlog art fair, organised by The July 16 agency, coincided with the Frieze Art Fair and saw 45 galleries and curators present art, installations, performances and films.