SAM TAYLOR WOOD

To coincide with the opening of new Council premises in St Petersburg, the artist Sam Taylor-Wood agreed to show a small selection of her recent work in both film and still photography in an eighteenth century palace, recently renovated by the Russian Museum. The celebrated 18th century Engineers Palace located behind the Hermitage occupies a special position in the hearts and minds of local St Petersburg residents, as the scene of the murder of Tsar Paul in the late 18th century. Since then, the palace has been used for a wide variety of official purposes including a training ground for engineers, only being transferred to its current use as an exhibition venue in the mid 1990s.

The exhibition afforded Sam Taylor-Wood an opportunity to premiere her two new videos, Strings (2003) and Ascension (2003) which were accompanied by a new series of photographic prints entitled Falling in which the artist appears suspended against the background of various French chateaux. The relevance of showing this particular body of work in St Petersburg stems from the Russian source material used for the new video Strings which features a male ballerina suspended in space, attempting to dance above a trio of musicians playing music by Tchaikovsky. The exhibition was co-curated by the artist and Alexander Borofsky, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Russian Museum.