“To the Soldiers of Labor” series was first shown in 2004 during the eponymous exhibition at the Guelman Gallery. The large-scale canvases depict the spaces of the Soviet factories filled with machines and other equipment (the artist drew “from nature” in the Taganrog area) in a typical for Shabelnikov graphical monochrome. The name of the worker manipulating the shown equipment was derived in the middle of each canvas. Only in the central piece (that is in possession of our museum’s collection) there is a slogan “Glory to labor”. It appears as the conceptual completion of the series. 

Inscribing the words over the picture is the classic method of destructing the pictorial illusion, particularly typical for conceptualism. The theme of labor is one of the common plots of Soviet socialist realist paintings. Shabelnikov has already appealed to the rethinking of social realism and the heritage of the Soviet era earlier, and does so again in "Requiem to the Will" series (2006 and 2013). In this series, the same theme is embodied in monumental painting, spiced with text and placed inside the installation (one object was also present at the exhibition). It becomes artist’s inference about the development of art of recent years and the society in general. Manufacture that formerly occupied the enormous space, time, and energy, has turned into a pile of objects, grave monuments to its soldiers. The monumental canvas darkens and begins to look like theatrical scenery, revealing its picturesqueness. 

Olga Danilkina