Nikas Safronov at SPILF-2026: Time to Be in Law

People's Artist of Russia Nikas Safronov presents at the St. Petersburg International Legal Forum 2026 an exposition about history, the unity of Russia's peoples, and space exploration: a journey through eras and states of the country, where historical reality meets philosophical metaphor and artistic imagination.

The works form a story about Russia's path through the centuries: from the reformist impulse of Peter the Great to the unity of its peoples, from the conquest of space to the reflection on time and the country's own identity as it changes without losing touch with its roots.

The theme of time, which completes this path, receives a separate development in the painting “The Man Manipulating Time.” Nikas Safronov has often said that in his youth he owed much to the Surrealists, above all Dali: melted clocks float in the corner of the painting, an almost direct quotation of Dali's soft watches from “The Persistence of Memory.” But while Dali's time flowed in a dream by itself, here it is taken into human hands, weighed and held like an ordinary object. The figure has a clock face instead of a face, while pocket watches of different shapes and eras fly around him: his past and present gathered into one moment. Who controls whom is unclear: the figure holds time in his hands, yet he himself is made of it.

This idea directly echoes the motto of SPILF-2026: “Time to Be in Law.” Time cannot be bent to one's will without consequences: whoever tries to manipulate it is himself shaped by it. Law, like time, does not tolerate arbitrariness; it requires not power over the moment, but responsibility before it.

Most of the works from the “From Classics to Space” series were previously shown at SPIEF 2026. For SPILF-2026, they acquire a special resonance: the forum traditionally speaks about the foundations of law and the state, while Nikas Safronov's works remind us that the future is built on understanding history, culture, and values, on the ability to be timely in law rather than trying to outrun or subdue it.