Alexei Kallima

The Rain Theorem

Alexei Kallima
The Rain Theorem

Curator: Olga Sviblova

The Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow presents Alexei Kallima’s installation ‘The Rain Theorem’, first shown in the Russian Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009.

This installation by Alexei Kallima is dedicated to football – the only sport that can gather tens of thousands of fans in a stadium and unite millions of spectators during the broadcast of a football match. Football evokes a surge of collective emotions, when everyone feels involved in victories or defeats that are perceived as ‘ours’, not ‘mine’.

The forty-metre mural, painted with fluorescent colours that only appear in ultraviolet light, depicts the stands of a raging stadium crowded with fans. Once inside Alexei Kallima’s installation, an integral feature of which is a sound track recording the roar of football fans and the noise of the stadium, the viewer involuntarily becomes part of the jubilant crowd. Then a white light switches on and the image disappears. The sound is turned off. Now the spectator finds himself in silence, in an empty white room. This contrast of experiences makes us think about how differently we exist in a crowd, and when left to ourselves.