Artist: Marina Razheva Assistance and witnessing: Dmitry Razhev Date: December 2016; 28 March 2026 Location: Cella Septichora, Pécs; Stone Sea, Szentbékkálla, Hungary Type: Photography, site-specific action Materials: Photographic prints Site conditions: Stone, natural light, wind Dimensions / Duration: Variable
Work description
Stone Score connects colour photographs made in December 2016 at Cella Septichora in Pécs, Hungary, with a site-specific action carried out on 28 March 2026 at the Stone Sea near Szentbékkálla, Hungary.
The photographs record a pattern revealed by sunlight passing through the stone of the entrance door, seen from inside the building. The translucent and opaque areas of the rock formed lines resembling a musical score. The photographs were made without processing, preserving the appearance of the stone at that moment.
In 2026, printed copies of the photographs were temporarily placed in a narrow stone corridor. Wind displaced the sheets, changing their arrangement. After documentation, all prints were collected and removed.
If something was recorded but no one could read it, was it a record all along?
Context
Stone Score approaches photography as a record of a visual event that the artist did not create. The translucent and opaque areas of the rock were already there, becoming visible through a particular combination of sunlight and architectural conditions.
Source Images
December 2016 — Cella Septichora, Pécs, Hungary
Colour photographs of lines and shadows in the stone of the entrance door, lit from behind by the sun and viewed from inside the building. The photographs were made without processing.
2024 — Cella Septichora, Pécs, Hungary
Photographs of the entrance door, viewed from outside before the museum opened. In the warm season the door stands open during opening hours.
Realization
28 March 2026 — Stone Sea, Szentbékkálla, Hungary
Site-specific action with photographic prints. Documentation of the action was followed by the collection and removal of all prints.
Interview for Na Vysote (На высоте), Yamal-Region television, with Elena Pasechnaya, 2019. Link to the recording to be added if available.Photographic documentation.
2016
Interview with Olga Tarasova. RIA Novy Den, Yekaterinburg, 26 July 2016. “Any time, you can make a book either a masterpiece or a pitiful sight.”
Gifts of Friendship. Prints from the Shlem Foundation Collection at the Yekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts. Scientific catalogue. Compiled by V. A. Malinov, I. A. Riznychok and E. A. Kustareva; edited by Z. Yu. Tayurov. Yekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts, 2020. ISBN 978-5-6042590-6-1. Marina Razheva, pp. 166–171.
Born to Fly… and Crawl. Almanac, issue 366. State Russian Museum; Palace Editions, St Petersburg, 2013. ISBN 978-5-93332-430-0; ISBN 978-3-86384-033-4. Marina Razheva, pp. 16, 27, 145.
Artist and Weapon (Художник и оружие). International sociocultural project. Exhibition catalogue. State Centre for Contemporary Art, Moscow, 2005. 132 pp. ISBN 5-94620-021-6.
Artists of Yekaterinburg. Project director: L. Shelupkina. 2004. Marina Razheva, pp. 120–121.
The 3rd International Kansk Video Festival. 2004.
White Internights (BIN). 2nd Independent International Biennale of Graphic Art, St Petersburg, 2004. ISBN 5-98174-006-X. Marina Razheva, pp. 184–185, no. 4.
The Eurasian Syndrome. International exhibition. Centre for Contemporary Culture, Ural State University. Compiled by T. A. Galeeva and S. L. Kropotov. Yekaterinburg: Ural University Press, 2004. Marina Razheva, p. 59.
Artist: Marina Razheva Date: 2002 Type: Urban intervention, public art Location: Mamin-Sibiryak Street, between Dekabristov and Tveritina streets, Yekaterinburg, Russia Materials: Yellow acrylic paint Extent: Approximately 25 metres
Work description
Corridor establishes a stretch of urban space in which everything within a distance of at least 25 steps is painted one pure colour. Buildings, pavement, trees, grass, soil and other elements become part of a single yellow field.
The intervention changes the visual relations between the elements of the street without changing their physical structure. Distinctions that ordinarily organize the urban environment are temporarily replaced by a common colour.
The project was realized in yellow. The resulting space appeared sunlit and joyful, even in bad weather.
The Story
Corridor was created for A_REAL001: Art in Public Spaces, an international festival of contemporary art in the urban environment held in Yekaterinburg in 2002. The festival was organized by the Yekaterinburg branch of the State Centre for Contemporary Art and explored the theme Mythology for the City.
On 26 September 2002, the festival presented two urban interventions: Corridor by Marina Razheva and Alley of Shadows by the ArtIgra group. Both projects addressed the relationship between people and the urban environment.
Razheva proposed marking a passage through the city by giving everything within it the same colour. In the realized version, yellow brought buildings, vegetation, pavement and soil into a single visual field.
The intervention did not create a new structure or replace the existing street. It changed the relation between what was already there. A familiar urban passage became an unusual environment to move through, altering the way the city was seen and felt.
Exhibition and realization
Festival: A_REAL001: Art in Public Spaces Festival dates: 4 September – 11 November 2002 Realization: 26 September 2002 Location: Mamin-Sibiryak Street, between Dekabristov and Tveritina streets, Yekaterinburg, Russia Theme:Mythology for the City Organizers: Yekaterinburg branch of the State Centre for Contemporary Art Curators: Arseny Sergeev, Nailya Allakhverdieva and Tatyana Vetluzhskikh
Artist’s note
“I wanted to mark a passage: not just a path, but a shift in perception.
When you step into a space where even the grass and asphalt are the same bright color, your body reacts: the city becomes less neutral.
It’s about tuning your attention like walking through a thought.”
Artist: Marina Razheva Date: 2006 Type: Object, performance Duration: 45 minutes Location: Museum of Fine Arts, Yekaterinburg, Russia
Work description
An invisible fir tree is decorated with invisible ornaments.
For 45 minutes, Marina Razheva moves up and down a stepladder, performing the gestures of decorating a Christmas tree that cannot be seen. The tree exists through the artist’s movements and the actions directed towards it.
The performance produces no visible tree or ornaments. What remains is the action, its photographic documentation and the object’s subsequent history.
The Story
The Invisible Fir was created for Christmas Inside Me, a collective exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Yekaterinburg, Russia. The exhibition ran from 22 December 2006 to 21 January 2007.
At the opening, artists took part in a live art-tree competition. Each had 45 minutes to create a Christmas tree in front of the visitors. The resulting works ranged from constructions made of everyday objects to experimental interpretations of the traditional festive tree.
Razheva chose to make a tree that was not there. She climbed a stepladder and went through the gestures of hanging ornaments on its invisible branches. For the duration of the performance, the audience could follow the work through her movements, although neither the tree nor the ornaments appeared.
The jury awarded The Invisible Fir the title of “most conceptual tree”, describing it as a “conceptual miracle”. The work was subsequently sold at a festive auction.
The performance began with an absent object and ended with a transaction. The tree could not be seen, yet it could be documented, judged and sold.
Exhibition and realization
Exhibition:Christmas Inside Me Dates: 22 December 2006 – 21 January 2007 Venue: Museum of Fine Arts, Yekaterinburg, Russia Event: Live art-tree competition, opening day, 22 December 2006 Duration: 45 minutes Recognition: Awarded “most conceptual tree” by the jury Subsequent history: Sold at a festive auction for 260 rubles
Press and reviews
“For almost an hour, the artist moved up and down a stepladder, hanging non-existent ornaments on a non-existent tree. The jury called it a ‘conceptual miracle’.”
Artist: Marina Razheva Date: 2003 Type: Performance Performer: Vladimir Razhev Location: Iset River embankment, Yekaterinburg, Russia
Work description
On the riverbank, a penguin plays a wooden recorder. Beside him, a small crystal vessel containing round fish-oil capsules rests on a napkin. Herrings are arranged in a semicircle in front of him.
The Story
Lullaby for the River was created for VKL/VYKL, a mini-festival of performances and actions in the urban environment, held in Yekaterinburg, Russia, on 11 June 2003. The festival was organized by the Yekaterinburg branch of the National Centre for Contemporary Arts to present the first issue of a magazine devoted to contemporary art in the Urals.
Instead of presenting the magazine within gallery walls, the organizers invited artists featured in its pages to make works in the city. The festival followed a defined route through the urban cultural landscape, bringing contemporary art into public space.
Marina Razheva created Lullaby for the River for this occasion. The performance took place on the embankment of the Iset River. Vladimir Razhev, dressed in a penguin costume, played a wooden recorder. A semicircle of herrings lay in front of him; beside him stood a small crystal vessel containing round fish-oil capsules.
The scene brought together a lullaby and a river, a costumed figure and dead fish, a musical gesture and an unusual offering. The performance unfolded in public space as part of a festival that brought contemporary art into the everyday life of the city.
The festival’s online archive listed the performance under the title Penguin. Photographs and surviving media references now serve as documentation of the action.
Event
Event:VKL/VYKL magazine presentation and mini-festival Date: 11 June 2003 Location: Iset River embankment, Yekaterinburg, Russia Organizers: Yekaterinburg branch of the National Centre for Contemporary Arts Curators: Nailya Allakhverdieva, Arseniy Sergeev and Tatyana Vetluzhskikh
Type: Installation, participatory action, living archive
Materials: Table, chair, newspapers, printed matter, digital platform
Dimensions / Duration: Variable; exhibition-based and online continuation
Work description
Created for FrontPage: Next 2025 at the Melina Cultural Centre in Athens, Απουσία / Απ’ ουσία takes the form of a reading corner with a table, a chair and a stack of newspapers whose texts and images have been partially removed.
Visitors are invited to read, look, search and interpret. Reading becomes an active process of reconstructing meaning from what is missing.
The work extends beyond the physical installation through Proofs of Presence: Living Archive. During the exhibition, visitors could upload photographs and comments via a QR code placed inside the installation. Their submissions were edited and published in real time, allowing the work to continue online through the participation of its visitors.
Exhibition and realization
2025 — Athens, Greece
Exhibition:FrontPage: Next 2025 Venue: Melina Cultural Centre
The installation was conceived specifically for the exhibition. Its participatory structure connected the physical reading space with an online archive generated through visitors’ contributions.
Online continuation
Proofs of Presence: Living Archive
The online archive extends the work beyond the exhibition space through photographs and comments submitted by visitors.
Several soap bubbles are released simultaneously. No individual bubble is designated in advance as the offering. I cannot say whether the offering is one bubble, several, or none at all.
The bubbles disappear without leaving material evidence. Photographs document the action, but they cannot establish what, if anything, was offered, how many offerings there may have been, or whether anything was received.
The work leaves the status of the gesture unresolved. Can an offering exist without a defined object? Can there be more than one?
Realizations
19 July 2025 Sörnyepuszta & Cserfekvési, Hungary
10 June 2026 Spitzelofen, Austria
19 June 2026 Valcamonica, Italy
Earlier proposal
Ġgantija, Gozo, Malta, 2025
The initial proposal imagined a soap bubble released once a minute inside the prehistoric megalithic temple of Ġgantija. The action was not realized in this form. In later realizations, several bubbles are released simultaneously, leaving open whether one, several, or none of them should be understood as an offering.
Sörnyepuszta & Cserfekvési, Hungary / Spitzelofen, Austria / Valcamonica, Italy
site-specific action, performance
soap solution, air
variable dimensions / duration
What has happened is certain. What has happened to it is not.
An offering is usually understood as an act of giving. But what is being offered, and whether there is an offering at all, can remain uncertain.
Fleeting Offering begins with soap bubbles released simultaneously. No individual bubble is designated in advance as the offering. I cannot say whether one, several, or none of them should be understood as the offering.
The bubbles disappear. No material evidence remains to settle the question. A photograph can record their release, but it cannot establish what, if anything, was offered, or whether it was received.
Can an offering exist without being identified? Can there be more than one?
The work does not answer these questions. It makes their uncertainty tangible.
The work has been enacted in places that bear evidence of other human gestures: prehistoric rock engravings in Valcamonica and a Roman dedication carved into a quarry wall in Carinthia. These marks have endured, but they cannot tell us what became of the gestures they preserve.
Fleeting Offering places a fleeting action among traces that have survived. It leaves open the difference between releasing something, making an offering, and knowing whether it has been received.
The action took place. What, if anything, was offered remains unresolved.
THE STORY
Fleeting Offering began as a proposal for Ġgantija, the prehistoric megalithic temple on the island of Gozo, Malta.
On 5 June 2025, Marina Razheva sent curator Julia Sysalova a project in which a single soap bubble would appear once a minute among the ancient stones, then disappear without a trace. A concealed machine would produce the bubbles without physically disturbing the site. The proposal also drew on the contrast between the fleeting bubble and the stone spheres of unknown purpose found inside the temple.
The project was not realized in this form, but its central question remained: what can an offering be when nothing remains to identify it?
In later realizations, several soap bubbles are released simultaneously. Unlike the initial proposal for Ġgantija, the later action does not designate a single bubble as the offering. It remains unresolved whether one, several, or none of the bubbles should be understood as an offering. Once the bubbles disappear, photographic documentation can record the release but cannot settle what, if anything, was offered or whether it was received.
The work has since been enacted in Hungary, Austria and Italy, including places where earlier human gestures survive in stone: a Roman dedication carved into a quarry wall at Spitzelofen and prehistoric rock engravings in Valcamonica.
Fleeting Offering brings a gesture without identifiable material evidence into contact with traces that have endured. It leaves open the difference between making an offering and knowing whether it has been received.
ARCHIVE
Earlier Proposal
Ġgantija, Gozo, Malta
The proposal was not realized in this form. These sketches preserve an earlier conception of Fleeting Offering, distinct from its later realizations.
The drawings imagine the proposed action in the setting of Ġgantija. They are conceptual sketches, not documentary images of an actual realization at the site.
A Curator’s Note (Written in response to the original proposal for Ġgantija, Malta, 2025)
What I see in this work is not only conceptual precision, but courage: a deliberate relinquishing of everything that renders art visible, assertive, or commodified. Razheva operates within the traditions of memory, ritual, and transcendence, yet through the strategy of disappearance. This is where its critical power lies: the artist offers not an object, but a situation that becomes a witnessing. The project is akin to breath, belonging to no one, claiming nothing, it happens and disappears, leaving behind only air and attention. Read the full curator’s note
Julia Sysalova Curator and critic, AICA member
Realizations
19 July 2025 Sörnyepuszta & Cserfekvési, Hungary
First realization of Fleeting Offering in its present form.
10 June 2026 Spitzelofen, Austria
Realization at a former marble quarry bearing a Roman dedication carved into the rock.
19 June 2026 Valcamonica, Italy
Realization in a landscape containing prehistoric rock engravings.
