all px must pass

The work is an empty frame. It holds no image, only a border and a duration — 4:33.

The title refers to George Harrison’s album All Things Must Pass, where pass means both to pass and to be passed over. Here, every pixel is passed over. This is not a refusal of the image, but a recognition of its limit — the most essential things cannot be fully expressed in words, actions, or images. Any image of them reduces them to something less.

The duration refers to John Cage’s 4′33″, a piece in which the absence of sound opens the possibility to hear.

The most important thing cannot be heard, and it is always hidden from the eye. It is not in the sound, but in the pause; not in the image, but in the gap no one looks at.

— Boris Grebenshchikov

The frame holds none of this. It only points to where it might be.

The form of the work follows a principle Viktor Kertanov often speaks of — a simple move instead of a complex construction. A few lines of code, nothing more.

This work is dedicated to three people. To George Harrison — for music that has stayed with me all my life. To John Cage — for the courage to leave room for silence. To Viktor Kertanov — for the discoveries that a genuine statement needs no complexity.

To all three — with gratitude.