In this work, a key figure of Futurism acquires a new resonance. In 1913, Umberto Boccioni created an image of a heroic stride into the future—powerful, dynamic, almost mechanical. A century later, that stride becomes something else. Zaytseva’s cardboard figure retains its forward momentum, but its movement no longer represents the triumph of speed. It unfolds through friction, interruption, and resistance. The material bends, breaks, responds to every effort. Instead of smooth assurance—vulnerability and focus; instead of metallic gleam—traces of labor and fragility.
The sculpture is covered with exposed corrugated cardboard—left visible and emphasized, like a rhythmic structure registering internal tension. The figure no longer walks through space but seems to move with it, constantly in dialogue with its surroundings. Space here is not a background but active matter: resisting, supporting, shaping.
Between the early 20th and 21st centuries lies a deep conceptual rift. Then—faith in technological progress, expansion, the will to remake the world. Now—attention to matter, a dialogue with space, the experience of resistance. From the ideal of force—to a vulnerable, yet resilient, form of being.
