5TH URAL INDUSTRIAL BIENNALE OF CONTEMPORARY ART
Multimedia installations by Vladislav Efimov often study the secret life of inanimate objects. In his work produced for the biennial, Efimov considers the natural history museums as meeting points for life and death. There, creatures deprived of life provide the narrative about natural diversity. Entering into a dialogue with those who are living, the dead serve as sources of
information and subjects to be studied.
The starting point for the project Without Blood is the theory from Communist philosopher, physician and science fiction writer Alexander Bogdanov, who founded the first institute of blood transfusion and considered blood as a means to unite people. However, Efimov is skeptical about Soviet mysticism. His photographs are produced with infrared light, which automatically
turns them red. They seem to be filled with blood, which in fact is not present there. As emphasized by the artist, blood is supposedly the only substance absent in the museum devoted to evolution and the study of life: “Its force is now spread out nourishing an indifferent universe.”