Pavel the Robot

This robot was created by Slava Bo for an action «Decompression of the Museum Universe». His name is Pavel in honour of Pasha Angelina, one of Stakhanov’s movement (socialist competition) participants. She is associated with the image of a tractor driver. Slava Bo made the robot for a Collectivization Hall of the Local History Museum. The artist put Pavel in a position of a tractor driver from the 1930s. For the exhibition opening Slava Bo created another Pavel the Robot and put it on himself as a costume. The two robots met the first wave of the visitors: one sat on the tractor, while another talked to visitors. The artist admits that the robot in this and others actions plays the role of a symbol of a new advanced view on life that contradicts the Soviet, religious and other social throwbacks. At the closing of the «+/- 17» exhibition artists and visitors created an installation «The Farewell Ceremony for Pavel the Robot». Visually the installation resembled the painting «The Last Supper» by Leonardo da Vinci. Pavel the Robot appeared as Christ, homemade pickles – as «The Last Supper».

Photo: Evgeniy Sulymenko