On March 2, the XL Gallery is opening an exhibition by Konstantin Zvezdochetov, "You're Dreaming! The exhibition is dedicated to the memory of Sven Gundlach, who passed away in mid-December last year.

The exhibition will feature paintings by Zvezdochetov - both new and those that have been waiting in the studio for decades. According to the artist, he originally wanted to make an exhibition of paintings that he had dreamed about.

- Sometimes I dreamt about a painting, and it wasn't always mine, but I wondered why I shouldn't paint it in reality. Time went by, I worked very long and slowly... And at that moment Sven dies. And immediately I got the association that a dream is an astral journey, just as going to another world is also in many ways an astral journey. And that's why this theme emerged - in addition to dreams, the stars, the Earth, the cosmos... Especially since Sven had a song about heroes fr om outer space.

Mirrored orbs spin on the ceiling of the gallery hall and music plays. On the walls are geographic maps and diagrams of the starry sky: the image of the globe is a view of the Earth from outer space, and this symbol can be seen in many works of the exhibition. As Zvezdochetov says, it has more to do with poetry than with philosophy, or even more so with politics.

- Rather, I was not writing a philosophical treatise (as often happens when a painting is a drawn philosophical treatise). Nor is it a political manifesto, as also happens. Rather, it is a poem, a poem. It's very difficult to retell a poem, and if it's also a poem in pictures, it's even more difficult to retell.

Zvezdochetov's exhibition "Normal Civilization," held at the XL Gallery in 2009, was dedicated to an overseas paradise. "Greetings from Moscow" (an exhibition held at XL in 2018) was about the paradise of pre-revolutionary Russia. "You'll Dream Such Things" is also about a kind of paradise, or rather, a view of Earth from paradise. The appearance of disco balls in the exhibition is also related to this: Zvezdochetov wanted to create a sense of "real disco" in the gallery space.

- Disco is also a kind of paradise. It's a kind of paradise, that's why everyone wants to go to a disco. That's first of all. And then there's the fact that with us Christians, this world is the world of the living. And that's why it's not really Christian to sprinkle ashes on our heads. There's an anxiety - a person is going to answer to the Almighty, right? And what will be the result of that answer. But, by and large, I think Sven has moved into a heavenly state: as we know, the Lord takes us in a better state because he is merciful. So I think Sven is in a safe place-"in a place of light, in a place of green." And I actually want to create the atmosphere of a place of light, a place of the green. I think that's how you could translate the title of Hemingway's story, "Wh ere it's clean and bright." I think that would be the translation: "In a place of light, in a place of meanness.

Konstantin Zvezdochetov is a Russian artist, one of the founders of the art groups "Mukhomor" and "Champions of the World" and a participant in the apartment exhibitions of the APTART gallery. The artist's solo exhibitions have been held at the XL Gallery ("Pepsi Chosen", 1995; "Babs Fakos", 1996; "One Potato, Two Potato", 1997; "Losses", 2005; "Normal Civilization", 2009; "Hello from Moscow", 2018), the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, the ART4 Museum, etc. The author's works are in the collections of the XL Gallery, the State Tretyakov Gallery, the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, the MUKHA Museum of Modern Art (Antwerp, Belgium), the Museum of Modern Art in Prato (Italy), etc.

Sven Gundlach (1959 - 2020) is a Russian artist and poet. In 1978, together with Konstantin Zvezdochetov, Sergei and Vladimir Mironenko, Alexei Kamensky and Vladimir Kara-Murza, he created the art group "Mukhomor". Participant and one of the organizers of the apartment exhibitions of the gallery APTART. One of the founders of the musical art project "Central Russian Uplands".