A two-act exhibition
I Think This Love Will Last Forever
Artem Lyapin, Alexander Pozin
25.04 — 25.06
LOBBY x Flor et Lavr Gallery
Curator: Petr Iwanow
In May of 2024, LOBBY hosted a pop-up exhibition project I Think This Love Will Last Forever initiated by Flor et Lavr Gallery.

The main LOBBY hall featured fairy-tale characters by artist Artem Lyapin. A miniature sculpture by monumentalist Alexander Pozin was placed in a niche of the library. It was placed on a model created by the Tsimailo Lyashenko Partners architectural bureau together with the developer brand MONO. The project was curated by Petr Iwanow.

“For me, any exhibition project initially springs from an emotional reaction. As for the works of Artem Lyapin, it was pure love at first sight. I was captivated by how Artem uses Vologda lace as one of his mediums and by the fact that he independently mastered this labor-intensive technique from a textbook. I have been supporting the traditions of Vologda lace for many years and consider it very important to preserve ancient crafts and integrate them into modern culture,” says Frol Burimsky, founder of Flor et Lavr Gallery.
I Think This Love Will Last Forever was Artem Lyapin’s inaugural Moscow project. The project at LOBBY displayed his new series made using the techniques of Vologda lace and cyanotype. Artem’s puppet theater background became one of the sources of inspiration for the exhibition. It was divided into two parts with its own scenography, plot, and author.

The second artist in the project was Alexander Pozin, who entered into a generational dialogue with Artem. Two authors and two labor-intensive techniques told the love story of two main characters: Senya and the Sower. Their story was based on the ancient Buryat myth about the Yenisei and Angara. In the first “act” of the project, the heroes went through familiar fairytale difficulties on their path to finding true love.
The second “act” took place in the library niche. It represented the sculpture garden with miniature bronze sculptures by Alexander Pozin. It was the main characters’ personal Eden, inhabited by amazing creatures. This was where Senya and the Sower strove to get, overcoming all difficulties. The scenography of the sculpture garden was specifically conceived for the project by Tsimailo Lyashenko Partners bureau with the support of the developer brand MONO.

Inspired by the exhibition project, the bureau’s architects created a concrete model based on the architectural elements of their project for the future Kami complex that was to be located in Moscow (5, Pyzhevsky Lane). The choice of concrete as a material for the residential complex conveyed a new aesthetic approach to the formation of a residential environment, where art coexisted with architecture in the same way Alexander Pozin’s sculpture was integrated into the model. In this way, the viewer could imagine the miniature sculptures in their real size as part of the urban landscape.