Arrival to the Significant Space
Book design for the
exhibition of artists
Irina Drozd
and Dmitry Shorin
“Arrival in a Place of Significance” is the first joint project by renowned artists Irina Drozd and Dmitry Shorin. The exhibition invites visitors to reinterpret the historic Moscow tenement building of the First Russian Insurance Company, built in 1906 and located at 21/5 Kuznetsky Most Street. “Visitors be able to experience the atmosphere of returning to the tenement building, which is now inhabited by peculiar ghosts of the past rather than by living people, reflecting the cultural layers and the ideology of the time,” said Anton Uspensky, curator of the exhibition.
Thematic sections of the exhibition create a multi-layered context that brings back the functionality of the tenement building that used to host the offices of various businesses such as the First Russian Automobile Club, the Steamship Trade Society, Pavel Ovchinnikov’s jewelry store, and Philip Morris’ department store. Works on books and the history of art are now located on the same floor as the former library, while works with references to the Soviet era occupy the place of communal apartments.
The Tomatdesign team was thrilled with the opportunity to create a book design that highlights the potential of the creative duo and the value of their works. The catalog is designed to be not just a classic reference material but as an object with artistic value of its own. The intersection of personal stories, mutual interviews of the artists, and the curator’s essay reveal the concept of the exhibition and establish the historical and cultural context for the publication.
The interior design of the book contains a subtle reference to the layout of the exhibition space: each section corresponds to a specific theme of the exhibition and is distinguished by the dense color of the half-title page and the monumental typography of the headings. The spreads offer a lot of space, where photoprint and texts are arranged rhythmically, freely, and without formality, like paintings on the walls, at a comfortable distance from each other.
The cover of the catalog reflects a key aspect of the exhibition — a dialogue between two artists who are similar in their interpretation of images but at the same time radically different as storytellers. In order to demonstrate this concept of duality, we used visual and tactile contrast, combining incompatible materials — matte brutal cardboard with glossy and ceremonial gold embossing.
The 130 works included in the catalog create an exciting dialogue about the intersections in the artists’ works, implicating the spirit and history of the house where the exhibition is located into the narrative. This book can become not only an aesthetic artifact but also a valuable collectable item for connoisseurs of contemporary art.
Client: Shorin Art Foundation
2025