Levon Lazarev is one of St. Petersburg's most prominent sculptors. His reputation of a stringent, austere and yet profoundly passionate artist goes back decades. Subjected to the strictures of his demanding taste and confined within a system of laconic, even ascetic, forms, Lazarev's formidable emotionality lends singular charm and significance to his art.

The words of Denis Diderot, who opined that sculpture was "a passionate, but taciturn and secretive muse" seem to be particularly relevant to Lazarev's work. The energy accumulated in his compositions is concealed from a casual onlooker by a tranquil equilibrium of forms. Only the knowing, empathetic eye will reveal the thrill of an approaching epiphany. The cold and heavy rock or metal that was immobile only a second ago, suddenly comes to life, palpitating, releasing volcanic forces hitherto fettered by the artist's will.

Lazarev has a marvelous command of modern monumentality. He knows how to turn a fragment of "condensed" matter into a recognizable figure-symbol, to evoke ancient mythological archetypes, expressing them in a plastic language attuned to the sound of the turn of the millennium.

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