1 A Canadian artist whose exhibition of monumental sculptures opened in Moscow on Friday says he has found post-communist Russians alive to his message of individual triumph over oppression.
2 'The Cold War is over. Welcome to the Warm War,' sculptor Noel Harding told a Russian audience at Friday's opening of Anti-Heroes, the first major Canadian art exhibition to visit post-Soviet Russia.
3 'This is a war of expressing and defining the relationship between us.'
4 The six massive constructions on display until Feb. 27 in Moscow's main exhibition hall depict fragile life forces striving to break free from confining shells of hard, impersonal material.
5 In one, a flower thrusts defiantly through a straitjacket of ventilation pipes. In another, a symbolic flame flickers against an enormous, sterile background of white plastic sheeting.
6 'I am addressing the attempt to be an individual within the oppression of systems, no matter whether they're subtle or overt,' says Harding.
7 'This has special meaning for people in Russia, in this historical context.'
8 The collapse of communism in 1989 inspired him to reach out to eastern Europeans, not to lecture to them, but to discover common meanings beneath apparently different experiences, Harding says.
9 Canada's ambassador to Russia, Jeremy Kinsman, called Harding's work 'politically insightful, profound and sometimes sad.'
10 'He has something to say to all of us.'
11 Russian viewers seemed divided.
12 'This is surprising, I couldn't imagine making art works with so many different materials,' said Natalia Belova, a 55-year-old schoolteacher.
13 'The theme of escape from control is one that has always interested we Russians.'
14 But Irina Kachalova, a 21-year-old art student, said she found nothing new.
15 'Westerners come over here and think we've never seen any art that isn't socialist realism,' she said.
16 'But we've seen everything.'
17 The exhibition's sponsors include the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Canada Council, The Province of Ontario and the Toronto Arts Council. It has already visited the ex-communist states of Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.
18 Harding, a 47-year-old artist from Toronto, has previously exhibited his work at the Art Gallery of Ontario, New York's Museum of Modern Art, Ottawa's National Art Gallery and the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels.
19 His three-part sculpture featuring apparently live trees recently won the international competition to represent Canada at the 1996 Cultural Olympiad as part of the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games.

A Canadian artist whose exhibition of monumental sculptures opened in Moscow on Friday says he has found post - communist Russians alive to his message of individual triumph over oppression .
post - communist Russians alive to his message
Why do post-communist Russians like his art?