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| pictures from the website Tutu Art that reports about a competition among non-professional artists organised by the Tutu travel organisation |
The house is characterized by a large amount of iron structures and sheet metal decorations, applied by the owner and resident of the house, Vasily Borodkov.
Life and works
Borodkov was born in 1937 or 1938. He became a carpenter, probably didn't marry and had no children.
He was recently in the news, because he was nominated as a participant in a competition in 2021/22 between non-professionals who created stand-alone artworks or art environments and in that context some short reviews were published. In that context, it was also reported that Vasily Borodkov passed away in March 2020, at age 82.
As said, Borodkov's art environment for the most part has been built up with iron items, strips or sheet metal..
The sheet metal that Borodkov often used to make his decorations, was cut out using cardboard templates that he produces first. He initially worked with a chisel, but later he got a sharpener, which greatly facilitated the work, and he also could use a welding machine to connect the constituent parts of a creation.
The images around show a large number of animals manufactured in this way, flying or sitting birds, such as doves and swans, but also other animals, such as squirrels.
And then, Borodkov also made a lot of other elements from sheet metal, such as flowers and small decorative items.
The texts in the two sources mentioned in the documentation below, refer in particular to the small-scale decorations that have been applied in this art environment, such as the birds and flowers.
Much less attention is paid to the large-scale creations formed by the fencing along the road and the overarching structure above the space between the house and the fencing, let alone that the design of the site in its various parts is discussed.
From an art environments point of view, these topics are an inherent part in a review of Borodov's artwork.
So, let's see what can be reported on this topic based on the available photo material, describing the site from the front with the fence along the road to the rear.
The fence
The picture above shows the entrance in the fence that over the full width separates the space in front of the house from the road.
The two entrance doors, formed with upright thin bars, like the other parts of the fence, are decorated with geometric shapes consisting of open and closed circles and open parallelograms in a horizontal position.
The doors are capped with upright iron arches in the shape of semicircles, each topped with a small sheet metal bird. Just behind the two doors, the entire entrance is roofed over by a sizable open structure of iron wire-work with arches, circles and other shapes, topped with an arrangement of white sheet metal birds.
The entrance leads naturally to an extension to the left of the actual living house, as seen from the road,
The house and its extension
The living house is colourful, this probably already by tradition, and has been decorated in a more relaxed way compared with other spots. Above the left window rises a structure of two horizontal strips, topped by a triangle, all with colorful motifs.
The extension, with a completely blue colored facade, has left and right triangular roofs above doors, both of which protrude quite a bit, creating covered spaces.
The courtyard behind the extension
At the rear of the extension there is a courtyard.
It' s quite probable that the above image gives an idea of the way in which this courtyard is arranged with benches situated under an iron picket fence with hanging decorations.
The area at the back of the site
Another seating area, pictured in the photo above, has been laid out at the very back of the entire complex of buildings, as shown in the image at the very top of this post. This place is probably on the roof of a building belonging to the complex.
The image above shows that one can get a little higher with a staircase. One then arrives in the midst of an exuberant arrangement of numerous decorations, situated at probably the highest point of Borodkov's art environment.
One can also go down the stairs pictured below and enter a second court yard.
The image shows the creations in this space only to a limited extent, but one cannot escape the impression that there is a lot of creations to see there.
The available documentation is inconclusive, but it is possible that the two courtyards mentioned here are connected with each other with a passage, or perhaps even form one whole.
To conclude
Concluding this review, it can be said that this art environment is a large-scale creation with a specific character due to the extensive use of iron material. There is no relationship whatsoever with folk art, it is an artwork as such.
Considering the geographical location of Tegeshev, it can be seen that the village is just some 115 km west of Kazan, the place where Ildar Khanov built the Temple of All Religions.
Could it be that Borodkov was inspired by this project, and in his own way and with his own materials gave his artwork a basilica-based structure, with the two roofed doors of the extension as entrance, the backyards with a number of benches as a church hall and the high rising semi-circular structure at the rear as the dome ? We won't know.
After Borodkov had passed away in March 2020, the house was cared for by a neighbour named Sergei Kandakov, who was designated as heir by Borodkov.
The house has been put up for sale.
Documentation
* Article (April 2020) in regional newspaper Progorod21 (pg21.ru)
* Entry (2021) on the website of Tutu Art presenting Borodkov's site with a variety of pictures and a short review
* Entry (2021) on the website Volgatourizm with a short review
first published February 2022, last revised June 2022
Vasili Borodkov
Decorated house
Tegeshevo, region Urmara, Chuvashia Republic, Russia
can (partly) be seen from the street
bravo merci
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