The exhibition of calligraphy by Nikolai Goldman "Red Shift" draws attention to the writing of texts as a form of fine art and raises an important social theme — the influence of cosmology on the attitude of the average person.

Over the past 20 years, a number of important discoveries have been made in the field of exploring the universe, which can radically change the life of mankind. During the same period of time in Russia, society had to solve political and economic issues, reducing the popularization of scientific knowledge in progression. Man is so arranged that it is important for him to understand his purpose. For millennia, he has been trying to find the meaning of life, taking as his helpers religion, esoteric and other spiritual practices. Perhaps because it is so "easier." Science "scares" the complexity of expressions, the need to delve into the formulas, mathematical calculations, evidence. However, according to Nikolai, any "difficult" discoveries, any formulas can be stated in a simple and intelligible language. It is science that gives the maximum number of answers, and scientists have a lot of knowledge, because they often ask the question: "Why?" If you want to understand yourself, start studying the world around you. In the framework of the Red Displacement exhibition, Nikolai Goldman suggests thinking about the place of man in the Universe and reflect on what connects us with the cosmos, what we are moving away from and where we are moving in space-time.

The intriguing title of the exhibition "Red Shift" means an optical phenomenon associated with a change in the wavelength of light towards the infrared spectrum. If, when observing a celestial object, the light is shifted to the red spectrum, it means that the object is moving away from us. The farther a galaxy, for example, the redder it is, the faster it will be removed. For the artist, the redshift is associated with time, which, in fact, is not uniform. You can draw a parallel with the way the light from a distant star changes until it reaches us. Similarly, events that fall into our field of vision may well turn out to be not what they are. The information that reaches our consciousness is repeatedly distorted by the environment.

Noteworthy is also the shape of the paintings that Nikolai Goldman chose for work. Seven pictures, folded into a rectangle, form an illustration of the motion of a wave, which can be compared with the divergence of circles in water or recall the structure of atoms, or the solar system, or the gravitational field of the solar system. The energy of a drop falling into water distorts the surface. The energy of the sun can give life and deprive it. Human energy attracts some people and repels others. Man as a source of energy creates his own unique field, becoming for someone a sun, for someone a star, for someone a companion, for someone a wandering planet that has lost its sun and is traveling in the darkness of space in search of heat and light.

All texts are written in a red-blue color spectrum on a black background, because these colors are associated with the visible cosmos that white, yellow, red stars and blue supernova stars travel through. The color scheme is perhaps one of the simplest bases for the viewer’s own reflections, drawing parallels between colors and emotions, colors and the events corresponding to them. Texts contain "invisible letters" — they have no color, merge with the background, symbolize emptiness. Emptiness is much larger than we imagine. It is filled with information and energy. She has gravity, so there is a mass. As is often the case, you need to peer, make an effort to see something, see.

The number of works is also not accidental, since for the author the number 7 corresponds to seven fundamental concepts: matter, emptiness, time, space, energy, gravity, magnetism. Each of these phenomena has not fully studied nature, but is closely connected with our daily life. No matter how much we want to think that man is the crown of creation, he is cosmic dust, which, due to gravity, condenses and forms into a known form of life. Human thoughts are an electromagnetic wave. The brain creates an electromagnetic field, and thoughts wander in it. When we worry, it literally happens.

Looking at a clear night at the sky, we always look to the past. It took the starlight hundreds of millions of years to reach our eyes. Admiring the cold glow in the dark, and the truth, you do not immediately think that the light that we see arose before mankind began to inhabit the Earth; that exactly at this moment the stars are born and die, the light from which they will see on the Earth after millions of years. Over the past twenty years, scientists have greatly advanced in studying the structure of the universe. Their discoveries give food for thought about traveling in space and time for unbelievable distances, the hope of finding planets similar to Earth, but, first of all, knowledge of how we ourselves are organized and according to what rules we interact with each other. Nikolai Goldman does not make categorical statements, he shares his observations and his thoughts, hoping that information will be followed by actions that will sooner or later make our lives more meaningful.

In this project, visual and substantive aspects of calligraphy both of art and philosophy, influencing the formation of a person’s world view, are organically intertwined.

In the modern world in European countries, the art of calligraphy is no less admirable than that of the Eastern ones, but the potential of this art is much deeper than it might seem at first glance. Calligraphy is the only activity where the meaning expressed in words makes it necessary to organize the brain in such a way as to "stir up" its mental and cognitive abilities. The process of calligraphic writing from the point of view of the work of the brain is incredibly complex. To write at least one letter, you must first know how to spell it, represent it in a word, link it with neighboring letters, and write a text of several words is not an easy task, which involves building a prediction of meaningful text, and then its virtuoso execution. It is important to understand here that in nature and in human life there is no other such thing that both understanding, and the most complex motor skills, and memory, and the most precise coordination of all these systems are integrated.

In the age of computers, the word does not keep up with the thought, so it is not written in beautiful handwriting, according to certain rules and in a certain state of mind. The word is typed on the keyboard. Starting to write by hand, modern man is increasingly surprised that, it turns out, he completely forgot how attractive the writing of letters can be. Is it any wonder that the true meaning of certain concepts is gradually slipping away from us? The ones that require slow pace and concentration.

Yuliya Klimko, Curator