Untitled 2006

Curator: Arsen Savadov's "Untitled" painting from 2006 presents a fascinating blend of surreal imagery rendered with oil paint. What's your immediate take on it? Editor: Whoa, it feels like a half-remembered dream. Kind of apocalyptic, yet playful—flying books, dolphins... I'm getting a strong undercurrent of knowledge adrift in a sea of chaos. It’s like intellectual life has sprung a leak. Curator: Intriguing. Observe the composition, though. The interplay between the representational elements, like the marine life, and the abstract—the arrow pointing upward, the scattered books, the loose brushstrokes... It creates a dialectic between the concrete and the conceptual. The dripping paint also reinforces the dreamlike imagery you pinpointed earlier. Editor: Yeah, and that arrow practically punctures the otherwise fluid landscape. It’s bold, assertive, and almost... sarcastic? Like a capitalist graph floating above an elegiac scene. What’s with all those airborne books? Curator: Perhaps Savadov uses these as metaphors for intellectual pursuits or the dissemination of ideas, displaced and destabilized in this aqueous environment. Also, that skewed rectangle looming to the upper right acts as an agent, directing you back into the body of the piece. Editor: Definitely see the books as disrupted narratives. Their pages seem to bleed into the sky and the waves, as if stories are dissolving. And the dolphins, though vibrant, can't quite salvage that sense of loss. Curator: And what about those dolphins? They certainly complicate the symbolic language of the composition. What narratives are suggested through them? How do they function, conceptually, with those flying books? The combination generates tension through semantic juxtaposition. Editor: Dolphins represent intelligence, freedom, but here, even they seem caught in this odd maelstrom. I like that "semantic juxtaposition"—sums it up perfectly! Curator: Considering the artistic climate of 2006, and the socio-political unrest globally at that time, "Untitled" functions as a poignant reflection of displaced ideals, perhaps even an elegy for a world struggling with cognitive dissonance. Editor: Maybe Savadov’s saying something about the struggle for enlightenment. Amidst rising tides of absurdity, these once-sacred books seem so powerless. Thanks. I feel like I've been thrown into that very ocean of ideas!