Oleg Dergachev

(1961 - )

4899

Monique Deryckere

State of Play

Meppel: Do Press, 1999

288 x 184 mm. 16 pages

Edition: 13. Copy nr. 6

Oleg Dergachev was born in Rostov and studied at the Ivan Fedorov Institute for Book art in Lvov (Ukraine). He started his career as a book artist in 1989 in his new hometown. Since 1993 he publishes his own books in Lvov under the imprint DO-press, the initials of his name reversed. Some of his books were published by Tishkov in Moscow under the Dablus imprint. State of Play is an exception. Published by Do-Press in the Netherlands in 1999 it was prepared as a book the previous year. Artist and author probably met during the artist’s exhibition in Antwerp in 1997. The existential poem of the world as a game of chess was written in 1997. The artist designed 7 etchings printed it at the Printers Museum in Meppel. The etchings, his favourite technique, are as usual with Dergachev’s pictures not so much illustrations as a sort of artist’s commentary on the text. Together with a Russian translation of the text, printed on see-through sheets of paper, these 7 etchings are incorporated in the book. Albeit currently living in the Ukraine Dergachev is part of the history of Russian book art and artists’ books. His books have been featured in all important exhibition of contemporary Russian book-art since the early 1990s both in Russia and abroad

References:

Bristol 1995, pp. 25-27

Hamburg 2013, p. 54