Valery Pavlovich Lamakh
(1925–1978)

Valery Pavlovich Lamakh, Books of Schemes, first and second albums, 1969–78, gouache on paper
, Collection of Alina Nikolaevna Lamakh
, installation view, Neue Galerie, Kassel, documenta 14, photo: Milan Soremski

“Inside every human being there is a light, a sun, and through it, we are able to behold an external light, the external sun,” wrote Lamakh in one of his Books of Schemes. These books construct a cosmological mythology developed by the artist over more than thirty years. He first starting compiling them in the early 1940s, when he was sent to Germany as a forced laborer. In the grand cosmic picture deployed in the five books, the word “scheme” is elevated to function as a lens of fundamental knowledge based on light. In Lamakh’s own words, the scheme is “a constellation of nodes breathing light; they approach each other infinitely, they glow and they fade, expressing the inexpressibility of the world.”

Posted in Public Exhibition