Semyon Faibisovich

Warning from the Soviet Health Ministry is a rare example of Faibisovich’s early experimentation with the effects of light and reflection on vision and perception of reality, which the artist would go on to develop in his cycles City Bus and Moscow Subway from the mid-1980s onwards.

In comparable works from the period, such as Metamorphosis (1983) and Shell (1982), the viewer sees the world through a coloured glass filter. In the case of the present work, the surrounding objects are partially transformed by the shadows the coloured glass throws on them. Notable here is Faibisovich’s deliberate direction of the viewer’s gaze towards mundane, gritty objects forming part of the Soviet reality. A humble pack of cigarettes, a few lit cigarette butts and three glass bottles become the focal point of the artist’s material enquiry.