Prokofiev Studio Opens in Hackney with 'Bending Time' | DIVO.

Prokofiev Studio launches this month with Bending Time, an inaugural group exhibition anchored by the physical archive of sculptor Oleg Prokofiev. The gallery carefully reconstructs the specific conditions of his 1990s workspace. His original studio stood just a short walk away on Dace Road. The curators have bypassed the usual nostalgia. The archive here operates as an active, working mechanism.

Oleg Prokofiev spent decades figuring out how to treat empty space as solid matter. His wooden sculptures carry genuine physical weight. They twist into thick knots. They loop back on themselves. The exhibition places these historical pieces alongside contemporary works by Valentino Vannini and Kirill Basalaev. Neither artist provides a standard, polite tribute. Vannini builds structures out of concrete, vaseline, and industrial mesh. Basalaev physically lifts the decay of urban walls and turns it into his medium. The connection between the three artists relies entirely on how they distort physical boundaries.

"The documents and sketchbooks are not presented as historical evidence," the gallery notes in its opening brief. "Fragmented and incomplete, they mirror the very structure of memory itself."

Hackney Wick has spent the last twenty years turning its industrial spaces into expensive real estate. This gallery puts original, messy production back into the postcode. It honours Oleg Prokofiev not by locking his work behind glass, but by forcing it into a direct conversation with the present. The space demands physical attendance to make sense of the layout.

The private view takes place on Thursday 30 April from 6 pm. The doors open to the public the following morning. Admission is free.