About

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Aleksandr Gordeev (b. 1994, Kazan) — conceptual artist working with drawing and poetry. His practice is rooted in autobiography, exploring vulnerability, self-perception, communication and the body as a vessel of memory.

With a background in modeling, fashion, and Japanese performance traditions (Butoh), Gordeev uses movement, posture and clothing as tools of expression and communication. 

His poetry is informed by the legacy of Russian conceptual and experimental traditions, where the text is treated as an object: not only its meaning, but also language itself—its patterns, its conventionality - becomes the subject of poetry.

Since 2022 he has curated international poetry readings in Russia, France, Denmark, and Germany.

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ExhibitionsSolo

Electrozavodskaya str. 33, b.4, apt. 21, 107076, Moscow, Russia
Rental apartment
Moscow, RU
2024

Poetry Day
Peredelkino
Moscow, RU
2021

Untitled
Betweenwindows gallery Moscow, RU
2020


Group

Into the Soft Light
Sistema gallery
Moscow, RU
2025

Limits of visibility Winzavod CCA
Moscow, RU
2025

One Stop Show, 
Commute hub at Blar 
Moscow, RU
2025

The Red Book
Nizhny Novgorod State Art Museum
Nizhny Novgorod, RU
2025

Vanishing trick
Peresvetov pereulok gallery Moscow, RU
2025

Isvkusstvo
Szena gallery
Moscow, RU
2024

Dungeons and Dragons Winzavod CCA
Moscow, RU
2024

a-s-t-r-a vol.5
a-s-t-r-a gallery
Winzavod CCA, Moscow, RU
2024

TECHNO(S)CENE
Athens Digital Arts Festival 
Santaroza Courthouse 
Athens, GR
2024

Essayage
Villa Paradis in residence at La Traverse 
Marseille, FR
2024

The Night Is Young
Serene gallery 
Moscow, RU
2023

Work in progress
Serene gallery 
Moscow, RU
2023

Nur
Digital Arts Festival National Library of The Republic of Tatarstan
Kazan, RU
2023

Angels of The Wonderful World of Dissocia
Galerie Charraudeau
Paris, FR
2022

To embrace and to cry
Sinara Art gallery (Special Project of Ural Biennial) Yekaterinburg, RU
2021

Lines of Thought 2020
CICA Museum 
Gyeonggi-do, KR
2020

Abstract Mind 2020
CICA Museum 
Gyeonggi-do, KR
2020

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Artist Residencies11th Season of Open Studios Winzavod CCA
Moscow, RU 
2024

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Art FairsBlazar, Independent Artists Section 
Museum of Moscow 
Moscow, RU 
2024

Blazar, Digital Art Section Museum of Moscow 
Moscow, RU 
2022

Cosmoscow
Lunar Hare Agency Booth Gostinyy Dvor 
Moscow, RU 
2020

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Other projectsCuration and organization of poetry readings in Moscow, Paris, Berlin, and Copenhagen, 2022–2024

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PressGrazia Russia
2025

Snob
2024

Buro 24/7
2020

Design Mate
2020

Sobaka.ru
2020
       

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Poetry

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Summer Draft


If there is no answer for my melancholy
probably there is no melancholy.

I don’t associate a stay in a hotel with vacation. 

Pause.
Think of what I just said.

Is that about general design - what hotels are made for?
Or is it just my life speaking back at me?

Some would think I am a whore.
Some would think I am a businessman.
I’m neither, but at the same time I’m both (Law of the Unity and Struggle of Opposites).

When I did a general blood test for sexually transmitted infections,
they asked if I had ever had sex for money. I said no.
I did not lie. I’m too Russian - equals pride.

I’ve always been scared of real intimacy. I’m too Russian - equals perseverance.

What exactly is a summer?
A hotel in Sicily,
a trip,
an ocean view?
A delayed reading of a book
I once judged by the cover?


Catania, 2025

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Tumblr BF


How do we develop deep feelings
based only on visual information?
Are they real at all?


Someone said:

“You’re actually so perfect.
Perfect to be my boyfriend.
We would be a beautiful couple.”

Hearing it made me sad,
So I sent them another photo.
Lower angle.
Less clothes.


I touch myself — not out of desire, but out of confusion.

I want to be adored.
I got to be adored - to cite the Stone Roses, that symbolizes the raw, almost obsessive human desire for recognition, love, and identity in a world that offers none freely. 

So I take a walk.
I take a dog for a walk.
To see a mountain.
Then a flight to Paris. Then Copenhagen.
Doesn't help. 

Am I perfect to fuck someone
to the point they almost say “I love you”?
Or is someone perfect enough to do that to me?


“What I would give to feel you inside,” they said, “looking into each other’s eyes.”
“What would you give?” I replied
“Everything.”


I doubt that, I thought to myself.


Mallorca, 2025

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Comfort. As a Concept.


Maybe one day I’ll dedicate a poem
 to Arket’s café in Copenhagen Airport.
 Maybe that’s exactly what I’m doing now.

It protects me from dead thoughts
 that poison my well-being.
 With its overpriced organic food,
 wooden benches,
 and racks of clothes
 I don’t intend to buy.

It’s always quiet there,
 even though it’s in the middle of a crowd.
 Maybe it feels peaceful
 because I’m surrounded by garments —
 the kind of environment I actually live in.

And there are other spaces.
 Like that French production company,
 “You Know My Name.”
 They treat people well.
 Because they know that respect leads to results:
 people who feel good
 look better on camera.

They associate modeling with vanity.
 But wanting to be seen
 is not the same as wanting to be watched.

Sometimes I’m not sure
 if I want comfort,
 or just permission to ask for it.

Comfort isn’t a luxury.
 It’s part of the infrastructure
 that lets other values function.

I still hesitate
 before saying what I like.
 Naming what you need
 makes it real.
 Real things can be dismissed.
 Or taken away.

Maybe that’s why I talk about cafés
 and wooden benches
 and racks of clothes —
 as if they could speak for me.

So I explain.
 Not to justify.
 Just to survive
 the moment after I speak.


Postscript (actually the reason I wrote this):

In my family,
comfort wasn’t encouraged.
You didn’t ask for what you wanted —
you waited until it was obvious.
And obvious often came too late.

Comfort meant giving others what you would want.
Which is not the same
as giving them what they need.

I learned early
not to share the things I love.
My peers laughed.
My parents shrugged.
Eventually I stopped showing anyone
what I actually cared about.

Which is also a kind of discomfort.
Not physical — but quieter,
and much harder to fix with furniture.
Even if it’s Scandinavian, neutral,
and framed by wooden benches and racks of clothes.

Maybe it’s cultural.
Maybe it’s a post-soviet trauma.
But where I come from,
expressing a need
felt like demanding too much.


Paris, 2025

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What do I think about when I read books on Object-Oriented Ontology and Superstring Theory?


A great question in itself, 
if only that were a question.
A hopeless attempt to understand the self,
from an important matter, steer my attention.

Meeting my therapist tomorrow at twelve,
every time it’s a comedy session.
Instead of responding, I laugh -
what’s so funny about depression?

I laugh at the seriousness with which he asks about my life,
it’s such a silly insinuation.
That moment in time when shame takes hold -
I numb myself out - emotional recession.

So thus, I read some intelligent books,
to ease the pain of feeling the strings’ vibrations.
Perchance, the physicists are wrong, 
and my existence is tied to no objects at all.


Paris, 2025

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identity in motion


i don't know who i am.
however, does it hold any significant relevance?


i mean look at me, look at the length of my hair and my face, look at the shape of my body,


praying every day on a mat 
for the clarity, for sovereignty, for variety 
projecting away the vanity of mine 
and everyone's humanity.

my sun in gemini, i am mutable air
witnessing the unending struggle of the psyche to express explain express

my identity is an expedition bereft of conclusion, 
a journey of self-discovery, insight, and resolution, 
a pursuit of self-awareness and enlightenment,
an enduring procedure of constant meditation and introspection.

exploring the depths of consciousness can be intense, 
as new truths emerge and old ideas lose their defense.

along the way, our tales interlace with others, 
weaving a web of stories akin to diagonal patterns.

maybe tomorrow, i find the answers i seek, 
as i isolate my soul from my mind and let it speak.


Hamburg, 2023

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what am i leaving after myself (except a carbon footprint)


a lonely teddy bear lying on a king size bed

a countless number of words that i’ve ever said 

my tabi shoes, i love them much, i’ll count it - one, two, three… oh, it’s six, right, for a pair to each lifestyle i had

i call my life - my main art

the notes on my traumas in my psychologist’s hands, she says it’s all mine, i don’t want it to possess 

a small collection of vinyl that i forgot at my ex’s, never had the courage to take it back, 

a number of people i convinced to invest in my art, now they are really sad 

a sister will inherit an apartment in Kazan 

no one ever will know that i see myself as a Faun 

no one ever will know who i really am 

is poppanda94 all i really am?

   pavankirpal

   aleksandraleksandrovichgordeev


Moscow, 2022-ongoing

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untitled


spanish valley of moses 

i got lemons from there 

put them next to my archival margiela 

like nobody’s business i wake up at 4 am to do my 2,5 hours prosperity prayer 

it’s very rare 

- to confront the self and be aware 

neither the body, nor your possessions, nor you will remain forever

i was, i was not, i am, i am not, i shall be, i shall be not



everywhere 


Mallorca, 2022

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the alien is enjoined to leave Denmark immediately


it feels like i’m obligated to write when i have a major crisis 
it feels like i have to capture the moment of struggle 
but in that moment i don’t have anything to say


maybe i cried from the shock and from being enforced to act against my wish 
maybe i am sitting here, in the detainee’s room of Copenhagen airport, refused of entry,
strangely for me fully embracing infinity. 

yet i still have this lingering feeling of writing it down, making a poem out of it, 
shaping this experience with words, 
like it happened to the abstract self and nothing to the physical 
standing on Danish land, my matter being separated from identifying numbers and symbols


and then there is this poem 
where i’m embracing my experience as the most valuable asset


Copenhagen, 2022

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untitled


i just want to tell a story of a little boy 
he feels that he doesn’t belong to this world 
and he is scared af 
the only thing he knows is that beauty can save him 
but not the superficial definition of beauty 
the special kind of beauty that comes from the harmony within 
to nurture that harmony is a hell of a challenge 
like to open a jar of pickles with french tips, acrylic nails 
acrylic protein 
acrylic alpha-keratin
one of the strongest biological materials


Moscow, 2022

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my life, expressed as emojis


🌱🪆
🥲🏡
🔬🐄🐖🐶🐱
✈️🌎📸🕺🏻🎥🚶🏼
🤡🤷🏼‍♂️🙍🏼
👤🌫
🧘🏼‍♂️📚
❗️👨🏻‍🎨❤️‍🔥✍🏻📝
👶🏻
🙏🏻


Tokyo, 2021

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i love flowers
because they give me joy;

i loved people once
unlike flowers they didn’t give me joy;
so i stopped loving people;

and i fell in love with flowers
but unlike people they can’t love me back;

people i loved never loved me back, 
and i never loved people that loved me.

so i chose to love flowers because they can’t hurt me; 
except that time when i cut myself with a blade of grass


Tokyo, 2021

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Last Updated 24.10.31

Selected work

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Under the Watchful Eye, 2024

Ink drawing on watercolor paper stretched over a wooden panel (190 × 65 cm) and a marker and ink drawing on a softbox (60 × 60 cm) mounted on lighting equipment
This work explores the state of self-criticism in the context of career and self-realization. Living in society and growing accustomed to external pressure, the individual begins to project their inner critic onto society, without realizing how these roles have been reversed. In seeking freedom of expression, the individual nonetheless becomes their own censor, imposing limitations and inflicting harm on themselves - sometimes more than society ever could. In this context, exhibitionism becomes an important way to resist internal pressure: an attempt to attract attention and ask for help. But often, this help is in vain, as in many societies, it is difficult for men to speak openly about their problems. All that remains is to “show."

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Shadow of a Doubt, 2024

Repurposed carpet and Prada Fall/Winter 2006 leather shoes
222 × 80 cmShadow of a Doubt is a sculptural installation shaped by my own struggles with self-doubt, impostor syndrome, and the insecurities surrounding male identity. A life-sized silhouette cut into carpet evokes both absence and instability, echoing Robert Longo’s Men in the Cities series, where suited figures collapse under unseen pressures. At its edge, men’s shoes from Prada’s Fall/Winter 2006 collection extend the reflection on masculinity - a collection noted for its interplay of armor and vulnerability.

By shifting drawing into spatial form, the work becomes a way to confront how identity is constructed, destabilized, and remembered through both personal experience and cultural symbols.

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The Power of the Weak, 2024

Markers and ink on watercolor paper, wood, glass, boarding passes, polyethylene foam
45 × 37 cm

This series of drawings explores the tension between external pressures and internal expectations. The figure of the office worker symbolizes the weight of social demands and personal ambition, while also reflecting my own frustrations with career-driven ideals. Within this framework, the work investigates male identity, capturing how these forces shape one’s sense of self. The character’s posture communicates exhaustion, apathy, and states of depression that emerge from this conflict.

The project is also an experiment in exposition: each piece is contextualized through the use of my own boarding passes and baggage tags as part of the graphic and conceptual composition.

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The Rail, 2024

Repurposed clothing rack, wooden and glass frame, hanger hook, markers and ink on watercolor paper
30 x 53 x 130 cm


This work explores drawing as a medium in relation to spatial display. A clothing rail, cut in half and welded back together, is reduced to an unusually narrow frame. While a standard rail is meant to hold many garments, this one allows space for only a single object. Within it hangs a drawing, framed in wood and glass, suspended from a clothing hook.

The drawing depicts familiar elements from my daily life. Rendered in thin lines with almost no color, they appear dispersed across the page in a way that suggests accident yet is carefully arranged. In these images, one garment often remains whole while another seems to fragment — a quiet reflection on solitude, the search for balance, and the way objects echo emotional states.

At the same time, the work considers clothing as a language of identity, shaped by the perspective of a man who has inhabited fashion professionally for years. Within the limits of men’s dress — with its codes of restraint and repetition — the rail becomes a metaphor for containment, while the drawing gestures toward the tension between expression and reduction.

The compression of the rail and the solitary framed drawing together form a gesture toward limitation and fragility. The narrow structure, less stable than its original form, mirrors the precariousness of what it holds. The work asks how much space an image, an object, or a life requires; how much can be carried, and how much inevitably slips away.

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Artist’s shoes, 2024

Shoes from the Aleksandr’s personal collection
Variable dimensions, site-specific
In this work, I turn to the language that best conveys my thoughts and emotions: clothing. Each pair of shoes reflects my search for self, showing how I recognize and construct my identity through material objects created by others. For me, this underscores that inner development is inseparable from engagement with the outside world - a journey that requires distance, both literal and metaphorical.

Each pair in the installation is accompanied by a label containing information about the brand, the designer, the materials, as well as the place and price of purchase. These labels act as a form of documentation, tracing not only the history of the objects but also the influences, memories, and contexts that have shaped me as a person. Together, they form both an archive and a map of identity.

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Pigs in the Fields, 2023-24

Markers,ink and watercolor on watercolor paper, wooden and glass frames
50 x 65 cm

This series began as an attempt to step outside the usual 25 x 25 cm drawing format and explore larger dimensions. The intention was to create a comic strip without a clearly defined verbal narrative, allowing only a visual story to form. The approach is experimental — treating drawing as a medium for exploration, and its presentation as part of the work itself. Attention is directed toward what usually remains overlooked, with the aim of forming a continuous image rather than isolated fragments.

The protagonists are pigs, genetically very close to humans (sharing 98% of DNA), yet occupying a contradictory position within society, culture, and religion. Their status as outsiders defines their role in the work.

The title of the series references Robert Longo’s Men in the Cities, which conveys loneliness, isolation, and inner struggle in the modern urban context. By contrast, the pigs inhabit the “fields” — in nature, among their own kind. They appear to live without tension, in a state of quiet happiness. Separated from humans by only 2% of genetic material, perhaps they are the ones who hold the “secret of happiness.”

Or perhaps it is precisely the futile human attempt to discover such a formula that keeps attention fixed on what is not truly essential.

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Puzzles, 2024

Markers and ink on watercolor paper
25 x 17 cm The series emerged from reflections on the autonomy of artworks and the possibility of their presentation beyond the author’s direct involvement. The aim is to create works that allow curators and viewers to engage freely with the series, investing their own perspective into the practice and transforming it in the process.

Each piece is conceived as independent, yet together they form a continuous line, a single unfolding image. The order of arrangement is intentionally left open, giving complete freedom to those working with the series to construct their own narrative. In addition, the works can be combined with drawings from other series with torn edges, generating entirely new stories and interpretations through their interaction.

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Put (oneself) in (someone’s) shoes, 2023

Markers and ink on watercolor paper
25 x 25 cm

This series merges an interest in high fashion with psychology. The works reflect on the universal search for identity, a pursuit that becomes increasingly complex in the modern world. Personal wounds, lived experience, and environment distance the individual from the “true self.” Aspirations are often misplaced, time is consumed by pursuits that are not genuinely desired, and needs are obscured by external expectations. Family, friends, teachers, and even strangers dictate who one is supposed to be. Attempts to step outside the comfort zone are frequently met with fear and societal judgment.

This condition is likened to the act of wearing high-heeled shoes: balance is difficult to sustain when they are too large, and movement becomes painful when they are too small. It also echoes Aleksandr’s experience as a model, where in the fashion industry footwear provided for work is often not the right size - a literal imbalance that mirrors the figurative one.

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Human Behavior and the Principle of Least Effort, an Introduction to Human Ecology, 2022

Single-channel video
0’48”


Национальный корпус русского языка,2022

Single-channel video
0’52”
The creation of this poem was inspired by Zipf's law, a statistical distribution observed in certain data sets, such as words in a linguistic corpus. According to Zipf's law, the frequency of specific words is inversely proportional to their rank. In English, typical texts reveal this pattern: the word “the” holds the highest frequency, appearing roughly one-tenth of the time, followed by “of” at about two-tenths, and so on.

Each language has its own distinctive sound. To capture this quality, the top 100 words were selected and transformed into a poem that reflects the rhythmic flow perceived when speaking English. An analogous poem was also created for the Russian language, following the same conceptual framework.

This work is also a search for the moment where poetic quality begins to emerge. Poetry is usually built from words charged with meaning and emotion, while here the words are stripped of affect, reduced to a dry statistical form. Personal experience enters through the way the words are arranged - through pauses, punctuation, and rhythm, echoing the Aleksandr’s manner in which poetry is usually written. In this way, an otherwise mute structure is imbued with a trace of subjectivity.

The work was further shaped through the voice of an AI avatar, represented by @synthesiaio, allowing the language itself to articulate its essence and intricacies.

The titles of the poems replicate the names of the resources from which the statistical data were derived.

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Modern Model Polaroids, 2021

10 digital prints (neural networks, Photoshop) on foam board
50 × 50 cm 
Edition of 1 This series consists of images manipulated through AI and Photoshop, using personal modeling “polaroids” (polas, snaps) as source material. In the fashion industry, polas are photographs of models presented in their most “commercial” state - no makeup, no styling, shot in daylight, and wearing clothes that reveal body shape. These images are distributed to agencies, designers, and used for castings.

After ten years of working as a model, the objectification embedded in this practice became impossible to ignore. Individuality is stripped away, and the sense of self becomes difficult to sustain. Any change in appearance - haircut, hair color, tattoo - requires agency approval and is usually discouraged.

Caught in this tension between being “myself” and being a model - a depersonalized material - this series was created as an attempt to reclaim authorship. By manipulating the model’s business card, new visual forms emerge that align more closely with a personal sense of identity, restoring agency over appearance.

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Under the Weight of Social Acceptance, 2021

Polymer clay, miniatures of furniture and dolls’s clothes and accesories
Variable dimesions
The contemporary individual is a child of digital technologies, imposed social expectations and roles, status-driven consumption, and endless disappointment in both self and surrounding reality. No achievement brings lasting satisfaction, but instead deepens the gap between genuine desires and external notions of happiness and success. The sculpture series is dedicated to this escape from material and illusory conventions.

By adopting a deliberately naïve style, the work underscores the link between conforming to “adult” standards and the loss of childhood. From an early age, individuals learn to adapt to the judgments of others, to probe the limits of what is permitted, and to internalize the rules of behavior. The miniature figures, made of colored polymer clay, are imperfect in form and supplemented with doll-like accessories and furniture, as if capturing the need to grow up prematurely and assume a posture acceptable to the outside world. Within these sculptures, traces of the human form can be discerned - distorted, hybrid, and marked by trauma.

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Asemic Letters, 2020

Gel pen and color pencils on paper
19 x 21 cm The Asemic Letters series is dedicated to my exploration of communication through poetry, the recognition of my inner feelings, and their transmission into the outside world.

In moments of stress, these feelings often become blurred and difficult to grasp, turning into a tangle of emotions that are hard to express. Every attempt to articulate them is usually doomed to failure. I perceive a certain poetry in this impossibility - the inability to express what is already difficult to formulate.

In this project, I chose to create poems not through words, but through visual means. The foundation lies in a state of neurosis and stress, with an attempt to convey sensations of instability, fragmentation, and vulnerability. This series is a collection of poems devoted to my fears, insecurities, and social phobias, which become an integral part of this visual poetry.

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Untitled, 2019

Injekt print on textured fine paper
21 x 29,5 cm
Edition of 1 
This series consists of prints of original poems produced on textured Japanese paper using a found, broken printer. The text appears in a custom typeface developed to imitate handwriting. What defines the work is the uniqueness of each print: the unstable mechanism of the malfunctioning printer, combined with the irregular surface of the paper, generates unpredictable results that cannot be repeated. Each impression becomes a singular event.

The work continues an earlier exploration of poetry as a form of communicating emotional states. Here, the focus shifts toward the misscommunication - an attempt to let words lose their semantic weight and instead acquire presence through visual form. It is a gesture of attempting to speak while withholding speech, to conceal what is said, and to locate expression in distortion, absence, and trace. Language becomes fragile, contingent, and material, as much about texture and accident as about communication.

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