Olga Danilkina, Ivan Isaev, Elena Ishchenko and Boris Klyushnikov - about the loneliness of the object and the diktat of the viewer, interpassivity and its political power, the art market and its autonomy
" Deep inside". The main project of the V Moscow Biennale young art, 2016
The preparations for the fifth biennale for young art took place in a tense atmosphere - next to the invariable logos of the two organizers, the NCCA and MMMA, a third appeared - ROSIZO. The Biennale appointed a commissioner - like the "senior" Moscow Biennale - Ekaterina Kibovskaya, whose main role, it seems, despite already three state organizers, was to find private partners and sponsors. Nadim Samman was chosen as the curator of the main project, who was included in the top ten young and promising curators according to Artsy.net.
The result of his work was the exhibition "Deep Inside", which brought together, as they say, 87 artists from 36 countries. The main project (as well as the entire biennale as a whole) evoked polar opinions, which were reflected, among other things, in a round table organized by the Artguide portal. Journal editors aroundart.ru Olga Danilkina and Elena Ishchenko decided to continue the discussion and called two young curators, Ivan Isaev and Boris Klyushnikov, to deepen the dispute - about the main project and brand of the young biennale, the loneliness of the object and the diktat of the viewer, interpassivity and its political power, art market and its autonomy.
Photos: Olga Danilkina
Ivan Isaev: Round table in "Artguide", dedicated to the youth biennale, to which we were also invited with Borya, passed with a tangible dominance of Victor Misiano's statements, in which the problems of the main project were touched upon somewhat in passing. Invitation to speak for publication on aroundart.ru seemed like a good chance to discuss the main project in more detail in order to develop and expand the critical argument in relation to the exhibition at the Trekhgornaya manufactory. Before the conversation, it was already obvious that my position would be rather accusatory, while Borya intended to defend precisely this modus of the Biennale, justifying what was exhibited.
Boris Klyushnikov: Yes, at that time we discussed in some detail the very foundations of the Biennale as a format, with its general problematic nature. However, if one is really consistent in criticism, then one can endlessly mediate statements, doubting their legitimacy. After criticizing the Biennale, one can wonder about the existence of the institution of art and, in the end, critically evaluate life itself on Earth. In this type of criticism, what escapes is the content of the statement, the analysis of what has been done, not what can be done in an ideal situation in a vacuum. So we have the format we have. And now I think we can reflect on how to read the main draft.
In the foreground: Yuri Shust. Exo oblivion. 2015. In the background: Claire Pugham. Hugging Attempt #25. 2015
AI: I'll start with the main claims to the project. I think that Samman's exhibition is the epitome of hack work at all levels: from the approach to the exhibition to the selection of works and installation. We are talking about the Biennale - an international event that is designed to revive the local scene, to present trends in the field of contemporary art. But we see in it a monstrous isolation from the context - from the Moscow socio-political, from the Tryokhgornaya manufactory. When the venue was announced, they emphasized that it was historical - this is Krasnaya Presnya, one of the central places of the revolutions of 1905 and 1917, the factory itself is old. But I didn't notice any work within the Main Project that would work with this context. I got the impression that most of The work was simply transferred from one White Cube, in which it was exhibited somewhere in Europe, to another White Cube. I think it would be nice to understand the environment in which you were invited to work. Understand the processes that take place here. Work should not be in a vacuum.
Elena Ischenko: Most of the works were not made specifically for the Biennale, with the exception of some projects by Russian artists.
AI: This is a very true observation, which confirms that the works were simply selected by the curator and transported from one "white cube" to another. They were alienated from the artists themselves.
Perhaps I fell victim to high expectations. Samman co-curated a very interesting and high-quality exhibition rare earth at the Thyssen-Bormenissa Museum. Plus the Antarctic Biennale, to which Samman is involved. He is involved in a sufficient number of interesting and innovative projects. I expected him to experiment this time as well. Here I see a bias towards digital, post-digital, post-scientific, pseudo-interactive objects, post-Internet art, art in the digital age, such fantasizing about information flows, global network, to universal communication, to a digital language - the fetishization of technologisms. An illustration of this is, for example, the naive work of Jeremy Santiago-Horsman, which romanticizes the aesthetics of binary code: a wall with crumbling plaster. The artist sees the fact and visualizes it in an obvious way. Or Eddie Wagenknecht's kind of interactive box of wires and lights, which, according to the catalog description, is "circuit boards and network cables put together ... (which) symbolize the 'cloud', social media, data, leaks"; in addition, this box “intercepts and records anonymous data received from networks operating nearby WiFi". And many other works are also extremely primitive visualizations of the metaphor, so many that they seriously exceed some critical number of "background" works for a large exhibition, making one think about the curator's too casual approach to the selection of works.
Jeremy Santiago-Hosman. Sanctuary (a b). 2016
BC: On the contrary, it seems to me that this is the best youth biennale project I have ever seen. And the abundance of critical judgments, in fact, stems from the fact that we approach its assessment from the point of view of given ideas, and not from the tasks that this biennale has set for us. All criticism is connected with some requirements - criticality, work with a local context, which become a maxim.
AI: Not exactly a maxim, but rather one of the aspects of the Biennale's quality.
BC: Yes, but we need to consider not them, but the questions posed by the Biennale itself, moreover, according to the form of interaction: theme - work, viewer - work, viewer - curatorial decision, and so on. In this context, it becomes clear that the curator decided on a very bold form. What did the biennials that became widespread in the 90s and 2000s do? They were just very contextualized and devoted to relationships, communication. First - the aesthetics of interaction, then - political activism. These projects drew the viewer into interaction, tried to turn the viewer into a citizen, move him to some position. And the current Samman Biennale clearly shows that this position, when you must necessarily seduce the viewer to action, to some kind of response, is already recognized by young artists as violent. I am attracted by the lack of this civic coquettishness, the requirement to do something, to think about the context, to participate in something. And if you look from this point of view, it becomes clear that the works are selected very accurately. There are many videos at the exhibition, for example, and this is such a narcissistic medium, closed in itself, a very contemplative object. And most of the objects, on the contrary, are non-interactive, on the contrary, they are lonely and self-contained.
The works I remember are mostly videos dedicated to a lonely gesture in the void, like the man with bees in the work of Mark Johnson. Or the video installation "Ascension" by Petr Davydchenko with a dive into the mud. There are many works at the exhibition that are perceived in an interpassive way, creating communication without communication, communication without communication. The curator breaks the connection between the viewer and the work. As in this hall with mirrors - the aesthetics of narcissism, you understand that you are closed in on yourself, like young art. Essentially, this distinguishing feature young people. Mark Fisher called it depressive hedonia - when you can't do anything but have fun. But this narcissism is paradoxical: when we demonstrate isolation on ourselves, we just find points of interaction, we understand that we are somehow connected.
Another important point thematic. Here, the theme is communications, communication is the circulation of images. It would seem that everything, we have already heard everything: the actor-network theory, the theory of communication, and that the world does not exist at all outside of communication. And this exhibition actually states the theme of communication, overpopulation with images, but at the same time it presents absolutely non-communicative works. For a long time there was this ideology of the surface, sliding, given digital technologies, and Deep Within offers a different mode.
Today, various performative lectures and parallel programs are popular, and it seems that the exhibition is no longer needed. Many have criticized this biennale for this. But it shows what can be expressed in a biennale form - isolation and loneliness associated with objects. It is no coincidence that there are no performances at this exhibition – you cannot express this idea in a performance. This Biennale is a link between so many lonelinesses. I think a lot of people feel like they're out of the community, so this biennial is contextual – it really resonates with me.
AI: It just seems to me that this exhibition was made according to the patterns of a ten-year-old biennale, when a set of qualities appeared for such conventional exhibitions. A mixture of works brought from different parts of the world in order to highlight some abstract issues. At the discussion of "Artguide" we recalled the Biennale illuminations, - this is a good example of such an exhibition: works that seem to be related to the topic, although anything can be related to it. This is precisely what defines the isolation from the local context, which is present in the main project of the Biennale.
BC: The Biennale you're talking about is Jean Hubert Martin's Earth Magicians. But the current youth biennale is done in a completely different way.
AI: No, I'm talking about this student form of the biennale, which arose thanks to their boom, when almost every point in the world that claims to be of some importance in contemporary art has its own. As a result, they are made according to one recipe: a problematic is taken from nowhere, formulated as generally as possible, artists producing various items on this topic, and everything is combined in one space.
Olga Danilkina: It seems to me that this Biennale is done differently. I really liked that it gives a very sober understanding that we cannot afford to think really productively about anything but the global. If we move to the local, then we inevitably plunge into the field of mass media and its reflection of political and social processes, and an attempt to objectively understand this is rather hopeless - this gesture will only multiply the informational noise and is unlikely to go beyond the manipulation used by the same mass media. I just really liked this removal from such topics.
BC: Me too, because the provincial is when you cannot claim your own universality, that you can think universally. And this is especially important for the youth biennale. During the discussion on Artguide, many expressed the idea that there should not be a youth biennale, that this is ageism. And it has been suggested that when the biennale was called “Stop! who's coming?", then it was a festival, funk, fun, and now the biennale and you need to somehow strain. But I realized what really youth biennials give young people the opportunity to be serious and be taken seriously, without this paraphernalia of "youth" - light art, parties, fun. And this exhibition counters that: it's tense, dark, pre-apocalyptic, hopeless. Vanya talks about the post-Internet, but he often pedals bright colors, but this exhibition is dim, monochrome. You will not make such an exhibition within the framework of the Farsh festival.
EI: It's an interesting idea, but it seems to me that the vector given by the phrase "biennial of young art" is not very correct. It provokes self-reflection - what is youth, what does it mean to be young - which, perhaps, is not entirely necessary.
OD: Yes, I can't watch exhibitions thinking about whether the artists are young or not. It seems that the “biennial of young art” is a concept that has lost its meaning.
BC: Yes you are right. Sociologists, for example, Pascal Gielen, rightly say that in Europe there is no longer a division into generations in contemporary art. But in Russia, it seems to me, there is such a context that here the concept of “young artist” makes sense. 89th year, the fall of the socialist bloc, the USSR led to a serious generational gap. The logic of decades is still looming in our country, and not because we are on the periphery, but precisely because of the context of 1989. The dispute between conceptualists and actionists or artists of the 2000s with actionists is an oedipal dispute.
EI: Yes, of course, there are artists who live in the post-Soviet space, there are those who lived in the Soviet. But after all, those who live in the post-Soviet space will soon cross this milestone of 35 years, which is such a ubiquitous qualification for a young artist.
BC: Of course, I'm not talking about the age limit. Although Massimiliano Gioni did an exhibition Younger than Jesus and no one really objected. But here's what I want to say. Everyone is worried that the glorification of youth is fascism. But you strangely imagine youth as if they are pumped-up guys who are bursting with health, energy and chauvinism. No, youth is different, and this biennale shows it. These are feeble children who cannot find themselves in life.
EI: It seems to me that this is exactly what the last biennale was about - "Time to Dream": about endless frustrations, about dissatisfaction and the impossibility of action. This biennale, if it talks about it, is very indirect.
In general, I agree that this biennale is about the loneliness of the object and the break in communication. In fact, the works in the exhibition crowd out the viewer: on the top floor, everything is covered by the sound from the video of Andrew Norman Wilson, a stupid pop song that mixes with the sound of other works, overlaps them and creates a space that is impossible to be in, uncomfortable in it. And in the mirror room you split and you cannot concentrate, fix your attention on some object. You can't get in touch with him. This becomes such a metaphor for the displacement of the viewer from the exhibition space and the loneliness of a separate object. It seems to me that this is well manifested in the architecture of the exhibition, exposition solutions: on the one hand, everything is exhibited with high quality and beautifully, all compositions are balanced, but the further you go and start to look at the works, this feeling of original integrity and harmony begins to fall apart. The whole exhibition is falling apart - there is no integrity, almost all the works are closed on themselves. This is an attractive idea, but it still rests on some kind of object production, on the market - most of the objects in the exhibition look like well-done gallery works. And in our Russian context, this loneliness is also reinforced by the feeling that these objects seem to be looking for their buyer, owner, but they cannot find him.
BC: The system has not been arranged this way for a long time, and these objects are not looking for their buyer.
EI: It shouldn't be that way.
AI: In the world, there are two main ways to monetize the name of the artist: either the artist sells social activism and receives grants, or he produces and sells objects - single items with which this biennale is filled. A sufficient number of quite successful gallery artists participate in the Biennale. But it seems to me that this exhibition cannot be considered as a new apology for an autonomous isolated object, because we have no reason to believe that this was done consciously. It is much easier to make an exhibition if we consider works of art as autonomous objects outside of their contextualization, an exhibition as a set of items in a white cube.
BC: No I do not agree. Firstly, because it is a programmatic exhibition, where the theme and form are closely related. Also, maybe I'm being too cynical, but I don't see anything wrong with people making things for sale. It's bad when it becomes a criterion for evaluating work. But you don't judge Dostoevsky by the number of symbols he wanted to fill in order to win back a debt. And a lot of beautiful and important work was done, which were then sold well.
Secondly, now it is much easier to conventionally make some kind of gathering. It is interesting to consider this youth biennale in the context of the last Moscow Biennale: these are two different responses to the same conditions - lack of funding. And the Moscow Biennale created a discussion platform...
AI:… a warm lamp biennale. Like in an incubator.
OD: I agree that objects are closed, but at the same time, in many works I recognized myself. I do not think that the Biennale ignores the local context, no, it refers to it, but not directly, this context does not shout at every corner “I am everything!” (because he is not everything), as is often the case.
BC: Yes, this is not a direct connection, but a resonant one. All people in a globalized world feel the same in some sense, but this coincidence becomes possible only when you are alone in the room doing something. Everyone is connected to this. This detachment.
OD: I liked that many works encourage you to look not at what is happening around you, but first of all at how you perceive it, how we generally think. In this sense, the work of Daria Koltsova with patterns on windows is interesting, in which this degree of interaction with the local context is well manifested.
This detachment resonated with me very much with the feeling of the state of our art community. Not a single video at the exhibition has Russian subtitles, the room has not been renovated. Gradually, sitting in our little world, we begin to understand how small it is and how limited everything is. As far as we by and large no one needs. And this moment is well felt at this Biennale.
AI: The Biennale basically shows that nobody needs us. The absence of subtitles is a marker, they do not need a big budget at all. From my point of view, this is another proof of negligence and carelessness in the approach to the exhibition.
OD: The situation with subtitles seems political to me for such a huge project.
AI: This is a very important marker of ignoring the local viewer.
Eli Maria Lundgor. Hundreds of explanations for the same thing. 2015
BC: To me, these problems seem less important, since the viewer should be excluded from this exhibition. The dictatorship of spectators has existed for a long time and it needs to be removed.
AI: You do not propose to remove this dictatorship with art for the sake of art and autonomous forms of self-expression?
BC: No. Firstly, this is not just a concept art for the sake of Art XIX century. The context is different, another form of relationship between these objects. In general, this idea is not so much about autonomous art, but about a certain policy of relations that is established today between people, between objects, between anything. This policy is not implemented directly, but through intermediaries. We communicate interpassively, not actively. Today, people no longer hold hands and do not go to the square. Today there are other methods of political response. Today you can be apolitical, and it will be a political statement.
AI: But this political statement favors the status quo. You can't deny that it's advantageous now for the authorities to put people in solitary confinement.
BC: No. It is beneficial to hang on the horizontal bar and watch public art. What caused the 2008 crisis? Because people just couldn't pay their loans. They are tired. Capitalism did not take into account this moment that people can simply block themselves.
EI: But at the same time, the works at the exhibition indicate that they were produced, that efforts and money were spent on this. Even the video is not found footage or raw documentaries, which require a minimum of costs and can be created alone. No, the videos at the exhibition show that the process of their production was costly and required the involvement of a team. If these are objects, then they are often made either with the involvement of new technologies, or are made skillfully. That is, the fatigue and passivity that the exhibition as a whole speaks of contradicts the way they are produced, contradicts, in fact, the artistic strategies of the participants.
BC: In the case of this exhibition, it is not about people in general. Works produce an effect, but do not require any action.
EI: So artists who actively create work and promote themselves produce work that tells us to be passive? The other day I received a letter from a PR woman of one of the exhibitors from Russia with a request to write about her for aroundart or take an interview, because she is beautiful, young and one of the few Russian artists who were taken to the main project. Such a strategy - to become known and sold - is contrary to the passivity we are talking about.
AI: I do not understand the reaction of Boris, who does not see this as a contradiction. We are accustomed to criticizing the position when the artist's career growth is the stimulus for the artist's work. We are accustomed to criticize the corruption of choice.
BC: What corruption of choice are you talking about when it comes to a curatorial exhibition?
AI: I see it because many of the works in the exhibition are very primitive and Bad quality. I also can't explain the choice of some Russian artists nothing else but the fact that they were literally pushed through to Samman.
EI: And how do you generally evaluate the choice of Russian artists? On the one hand we see foreign artists, which are more or less known, who cooperate with galleries, on the other - Russian, half of which we do not even know.
AI: I have two feelings about this choice. On the one hand, I learned a few new names that seemed very interesting to me, which I will be watching. Many works are powerful - an extremely appropriate and memorable video with a diver Petr Davydchenko, the above-mentioned patterns on the windows of Daria Koltsova, Daria Pravda's Balloons, simple, but precise wall"Not a word about the war" by Natasha Tikhonova. On the other hand, there are some completely strange works, the choice of which seemed simply corrupt to me - all sorts of borscht, collages and haters of concepts. I can't imagine that the curator attracted these works of his own free will.
BC: I rate this choice as excellent! It's great that there are so many unknown artists. And I do not agree with Vanya's words that this is corruption. Samman chose the artists by request. And the ideal situation, when the curator has an overview of everything in general, is simply impossible. This is a utopian view. In addition, I do not see anything wrong with people professionally engaged in their promotion and hiring PR people.
About the work. I saw not so much bad work how much a certain structure: the exhibition has central, well-structured works and there are works of the second row, made not even by artists, but by designers. Apparently, they went through the application. But these works do not look terrible. Each work plays its own role in the overall idea.
EI: What works do you think are the most important?
BC: For example, with the diver Peter Davydchenko. Multiple reflections, paranoia. He constantly dives into this mud, like a sewer doing Sisyphean labor. This work echoes the hall of mirrors. I remember the flags of the failed states of Andrew Renville, "Balloons". Also Felix Kissling. I can't say that this is some incredible work, but it is very precisely tailored.
AI: In addition to the works named Boreas, I will note "Jericho" by Lee Nevo, "Military Halls" by Katarina Grutsay. Works with the material - by Ekaterina Burlyga or by Revital Cohen and Thor van Balen. Eli Maria Lundgor's video "A Hundred Explanations of the Same" seems to me to be one of the central ones for a biennale with this name. Flags, of course; I will even call them a second time! This is one of the few works that had to be shown right here, in Moscow, and right now. And the “Anti-Sun” you mentioned is the very selfie work that should be at every biennale!
BC: This is good! Selfie is a very important phenomenon that speaks of loneliness. Remember the work of Bruce Nauman depression square? Naumann made such an envelope, going deep, and called it the abyss of despair. But skaters started using it as a ramp and started taking selfies there. Take a selfie in the abyss of despair! You're taking selfies because you're locked in a world of self-valorization. So it is here: you take a selfie against the backdrop of a black abyss.
OD: I don't really understand the critique of art as an industry in the context of a big international event. What else can you expect from him? Why does it bother us so much that an artist has a PR man?
EI: The industry needs to be criticized precisely within the framework of the biennale. Our system is arranged in such a way that a flurry of events takes place within the framework of the Biennale - everyone wants to get into the Biennale catalogue. In itself, this is not bad - if this system worked smoothly. But after all, about which events are still chosen for the parallel program, their organizers find out almost before the opening and begin frantically preparing them, although at other times they could have done them better and more thoughtfully, albeit without this tick of participating in special program biennale. Gallery "Triumph" begins to cooperate with a new art park at some residential complex under construction.
AI: At Donstroy.
EI: And in this way we will find out where the money will come from for the Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art.
OD: At a briefing about her future, it was clearly said that money from state budget She most likely won't be in the near future.
EI: Well, we started looking for sponsors.
AI: The Biennale is an excuse for officials to fork out, to perform under a certain label rooted in art itself. The Biennale is a genre of mega-exhibition, which, of course, serves certain purposes. But such an event has good qualities that lie in the field of experiments, temporality and fragility of works (their different temporality), dialogue with the local context. Question: should we try to get rid of them and turn the biennale into another show standalone works. Or vice versa: we must conserve them and turn them into a biennale canon. These are two completely different, but mutually vulnerable positions.
From June 8 to July 31, 2018, the sixth Moscow International Biennale for Young Art will be held in the capital. More than 50 young artists from all over the world will present their works - the winners open competition. The age of participants and curators is up to 35 years old inclusive. Commissioner of the Biennale - Ekaterina Kibovskaya, curator of the main project - Lucrezia Calabro Visconti.
The only biennale in the world, in which only young artists take part, will cover several venues at once: the Dawn business district on Krasnaya Presnya, the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA), State Center contemporary art as part of ROSIZO, the AZ Museum and a special area in the Central Department Store. The total space of the biennial projects is comparable in size to Red Square. There are 5 blocks in the program: the main project, strategic projects, special projects, parallel and educational programs. In just a month and a half, 55 events will take place.
“The goal of the Biennale is to showcase the current work of talented young artists. Indeed, among them there are those who in 20-30 years will become known to the whole world, whose works will adorn the collections of the best museums, - says Ekaterina Kibovskaya. - We often do not realize that many of the recognized works of art were created by young people. Vereshchagin wrote "The Apotheosis of War" at 29, Picasso's "Girl on a Ball" at 24, Duchamp shocked the world with "Fountain" at 30.
Main project
The main project of the Biennale will be the Abracadabra exhibition. Out of 1,500 applications, project curator Lucrezia Calabro Visconti (Italy) chose 58 works and combined them common theme, referring simultaneously to an ancient magic spell and to the hit of Soviet discos - the song "Abracadabra" by Steve Miller.
“The open competition of this biennale has given me a unique opportunity to explore the practices of young artists from all over the world. The very process of selecting artists for the Abracadabra project was very exciting, says curator Lucrezia Calabro Visconti. - "Abracadabra" carries many meanings, it is one of the most universal words that sounds the same in many languages. The history of Soviet discos, where Steve Miller's Abracadabra played, and esoteric practices became the starting point for a narrative that touches on the themes of the strike, metabolism, hypochondria, attention, intimacy, sleep and understatement.
Lucrezia Calabro Visconti is an independent curator and co-founder of the non-profit research project CLOG. She graduated in Performing Arts from the IUAV Venice Institute of Architecture and the De Appel curatorial program in Amsterdam in 2017. Lucrezia's recent projects include contemporary art exhibitions, educational platforms and public programs in Italy and the Netherlands.
Abracadabra will take place in the Rassvet quarter on Krasnaya Presnya. Rassvet is distinguished by a unique creative atmosphere created by historical architecture and modern design solutions. The complex combines the former buildings of the Myur and Maryliz furniture factory, which supplied goods for imperial court. Now these buildings are being reconstructed using advanced engineering technologies and carefully preserving the architectural appearance. The Rassvet quarter is the third integrated development project by KR Properties along with Krasnaya Roza and Danilovskaya Manufactory.
Place: business district"Dawn" on Krasnaya Presnya
Address: Stolyarny lane, 3, bldg. 1
Strategic projects
The main project will be continued and expanded by the strategic exhibitions This site is under Revolution (“revolutionary work is underway”) by curator Barbara Cueto at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA on Gogolevsky) and “Thank you, please, excuse me” by curator Zhenya Chaika at the National Center for Contemporary Art as part of "ROSIZO". The curators were selected by the expert council of the Biennale on the basis of an open competition.
In her projects, Barbara Cueto (Spain/Germany) pays special attention to social, political and environmental impact use of technology, explores the movement of society in the posthuman era, studies the role of art in the world of technology. Barbara has collaborated with the Museum of Modern Art in Seoul, the Volksbühne Theater in Berlin, the De Appel Center for Contemporary Art in Amsterdam, and the Bétonsalon in Paris. The This site is under Revolution project will be located in the MMOMA building on Gogolevsky Boulevard and will continue in the digital space on the CosmosCarl.co.uk platform.
“The Internet gives us new opportunities and plays a significant role in our lives. However, do not forget about the implicit aggression that constantly occurs in the digital space, explains Barbara Cueto. - The human factor is lost in the flood of photos, comments and information, while corporations collect this data and use it in commercial purposes. How to counter these systems of oppression? The exhibition is just trying to figure it out and work through these ideas in order to show the acts of resistance today.
The theme of the magic spell will be continued by Zhenya Chaika (Russia) - a philosopher by education, curator of the Art Residences program of the Ural Industrial Biennale, for which in 2012 she was nominated for "Innovation" - main Russian award in the field of contemporary art.
“Thank you, please, excuse me - these are the three “magic words” that we have known since childhood. From an early age, a person understands that politeness makes it possible to negotiate, reconcile and leave a good impression of oneself, - says Zhenya Chaika. - Over time, these words, and, if we talk about modern society, then still brackets and emoticons, become the key that opens all the doors. However, we adults should think about what is the resource of magic? How many times do you need to repeat these words for them to lose their power? As part of the exhibition, we will look at the world that the “magic words” create, and at the ruins that remain after its destruction.”
Exhibition This site is under Revolution
Venue: Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA on Gogolevsky)
Address: Gogolevsky Boulevard, d. 10
Exhibition "Thank you, please excuse me"
Venue: State Center for Contemporary Art as part of ROSIZO
Address: Zoologicheskaya st., 13, building 2
Special project. Focus
This year one of the museums will join the Biennale, which has not previously worked with young art. It will be the AZ Museum, which is engaged in the preservation, study and updating of the heritage of Anatoly Zverev and other artists of the sixties. At the same time, it and the MMOMA Educational Center will host the Ideal Age exhibition curated by Andrey Yegorov and Anna Arutyunyan, researchers at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art.
“For the Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, age plays a crucial role. As part of our exhibition, we decided to think about the role age plays in our lives, how we comprehend, accept and accept it, ”explains Andrey Egorov, curator and head of the MMOMA scientific department.
The Ideal Age exhibition consists of two complementary parts presented in different spaces. Part of the exhibition at MMOMA will play with the concept of the "three ages", touch upon the issues of the cult of youth, ageism and the frustration of growing up, and also touch on the topic creative age at the artists. The exposition will be based on works from the museum's collection and projects of invited young artists. The AZ Museum will present three site-specific installations: in the courtyard and on the back facade of the building, in the virtual space of "augmented reality". They will be united by the image of an ideal place where age loses its meaning.
Educational program
From June 9 to 11, the educational program "School of the End of Time" will be held. Responsible for direction Italian artists Ambra Pittoni and Paul-Flavien Henriquez-Sarano and main project curator Lucrezia Calabro Visconti. Lectures, workshops, performances and dance classes aimed at creating and sharing new and forgotten old knowledge will be held on the fifth floor of the Central Department Store.
Location: Central Department Store, 5th floor
Address: Petrovka st., 2
On May 12, 2017, at Ca' Foscari University in Venice, Ekaterina Kibovskaya, commissioner of the 6th Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, presented the curator of the main project of the biennale, which will be held in Moscow in the summer of 2018. Lucrezia Calabro Visconti, a young independent curator from Italy, became the curator.
The theme for the 2018 Biennale proposed by Lucrezia Calabro Visconti is "Abracadabra".
Lucrezia Calabro Visconti, curator of the main project:
“The Moscow International Biennale for Young Art is known for its ability to open the art world new horizons and perspectives. I am grateful to the organizers for their trust and for the opportunity to carry out the exhibition in the inspiring context of Moscow. The main project of the Abracadabra Biennale will be dedicated to modern life in which the boundaries between the private, professional and public spheres are almost completely blurred. The name "Abracadabra" is a reference to an ancient spell and to the disco hit of the same name by Steve Miller, popular in the eighties. I would describe the project as a dance floor metaphor, where the participants both have fun and follow certain rules, interacting in the most unexpected ways. That is why, when choosing artists, I am going to give preference to those who work with performative practices, video and sound.”
Ekaterina Kibovskaya, Commissioner of the Biennale:
“The Moscow International Biennale for Young Art is not only the main project, which next year will be curated by Lucrezia Calabro Visconti, but also strategic projects, special, parallel and educational programs. In 2016, more than 60 exhibitions were held in Moscow as part of the Biennale, some projects were opened in Yekaterinburg and Nizhny Novgorod. This is a lot, but I am sure that in 2018 we will be able to attract foreign guests to our large-scale international festival even more artists, curators and institutions from the regions of Russia. It will certainly expand our horizons.”
Vasily Tsereteli, Executive Director of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA): “The Moscow International Biennale for Young Art is one of the youngest biennials in the world, but it already has impressive experience and achievements to be proud of. It is a great honor for us, ROSIZO and MMOMA, the organizers of this cultural initiative, to announce the curator and theme of our biennale within the walls of Ca’ Foscari University. And I hope that in a few years the artists participating in the Young Art Biennale will be able to take part in the Venice Biennale.”
In autumn 2017 on the site www.youngart.ru will begin accepting applications from artists and curators under the age of 35 to participate in the main and strategic project of the Biennale.
Moscow International Biennale for Young Art
- one of the most ambitious projects in the field of contemporary art in Russia - has been held since 2008. The tasks of the Biennale are to discover new names, support and stimulate the creative initiatives of artists and curators of a new generation, create conditions for their public expression and, as a result, develop the contemporary art environment.
Lucrezia Calabro Visconti
(Lucrezia Calabrò Visconti, b. 1990, Turin) - independent curator, co-founder of the non-profit research project CLOG. Graduated in Visual and Performing Arts from the Institute of Architecture in Venice. Master of Philosophy at the Ca' Foscari University (Venice). Participated in the CAMPO12 curatorial program of the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation in Turin; trained under the "Curatorial" program at Artists Space (New York). She is studying under the curatorial program of the De Appel Center (Amsterdam). As an assistant and coordinator, she took part in the work on the projects Tutttovero in Castello di Rivoli (Turin) (curated by Francesco Bonami) and Shit and Die in Palazzo Cavour (Turin) (curated by Maurizio Cattelan, Miriam Ben Salah and Marta Papini) Collaborated with the magazines TOILETPAPER and Le Dictateur Author of articles in various art publications, creator of online projects Curatorshit, shitndie and Ketchup Drool Lucrezia's recent curatorial projects include "Why is everyone so cute?" (Why Is Everybody Being So Nice, 2017, De Appel, Amsterdam), Good Luck, See You After the Revolution (2017, UvA, Amsterdam) and Dear Betty: Run Fast, Bite Hard (Dear Betty: Run Fast Bite Hard!, 2016, Gallery of Contemporary and latest art, Bergamo).
6th Moscow International Biennale for Young Art
Strategic project at MMOMA
Revolutionary work in progress
 Dorota Gaveda and Egle Kulbokaite, "Group of Young Readers", installation, performance, 2017  Benjamin Forester, HyperReadings, installation, workshop.  Joana Mol and Cedric Parisot, "Virtual Observers", online video project  Tabitha Razar, "Sincerely Sorry" video |
Free mediation tours take place on: Thursday and Wednesday - at 14:00 and 18:00; Saturday - at 13:00; Sunday - 13:00 and 18:00. Until 22 July.
Strategic project curator: Barbara Cueto
The Moscow Museum of Modern Art for the sixth time has become a platform for the strategic project of the Moscow International Biennale for Young Art. In 2018, Lucrezia Calabro Visconti became the curator of the Main project called "Abracadabra", and Barbara Cueto became the curator of the strategic "Revolutionary work in progress".
Cueto invited the artists of her project to think about what could be a form of protest in the era of digital oligarchies, how can biased institutions and unfair control mechanisms be resisted, and what can be considered violence in the digital space? The project within the framework of the Biennale will symbolically take place in the MMOMA mansion on Gogolevsky Boulevard, where the circle of Decembrists once gathered, and will continue in the digital space - on the CosmosCarl.co.uk platform.
IN virtual world our voices seem to be devoid of echo - they dissolve in an endless stream of images and data. We become only observers of our own experience and data providers for corporations. Despite the evidence of aggressive actions in the digital field, they continue to be masked by arguments about protection and freedom of access to information. To combat repressive yet fluid and intangible systems such as Google and Facebook, Revolutionary Works Underway explores the mechanisms by which they can be circumvented and undermined, as well as ways to awaken civic consciousness. Including work done in various types art - from text and performance to sound installation and part of the exhibition in the digital space, the exhibition shows how artists, with the help of minimal means, criticize and oppose generally accepted long-established norms that, in their opinion, do not represent the right different groups society. digital form artistic language they choose how optimal strategy combating new ways of virtual suppression and manipulation that have emerged in the 21st century, and focus on the social, cultural, historical, gender aspects of identity in the context of a post-digital society.
The strategic project of the biennale, curated by Barbara Cueto, is a way of personal and group struggle of the biennale participants with the system. Defining it as institutionally biased towards the individual, the authors offer everyone to look at it from the position of inequality, individual influence and action, that is, manifestations of civic activity. So, for example, Benjamin Forster's HyperReadings project appeared - an open software, on the platform of which users can make a list of books for self-education and share it with other users.
The exhibition turns the museum into an instrument of influence, and the exposition into live action, thanks to an extensive educational program, which includes seminars, discussions and performances - both in digital and in physical space.
Project participants in MMOMA:
Benjamin Forster (Australia) and Julia Babyka (Australia/Germany), Joana Moi (Spain) and Cedric Parisot (Spain), Dorota Gaveda (Poland) and Egle Külbokite (Lithuania), Ignas Krunglevichius (Lithuania), Morehshin Allahyari (Iran), Pyuk Fong (Netherlands), Saemundur Thor Helgason (Iceland) and Frederic Pissuise (Netherlands), Stephanie Saijuko (USA), Tabitha Roser (France), Ho Rui An (Singapore), Art & Feminism (USA), ShareLab (Serbia), UnmakeLab (Korea).
Artists of the virtual part of the CosmosCarl.co.uk project:
Hackblossom (USA), Benjamin Grosser (USA), Ramsey Nasser (Lebanon), Jasmine Visser (Netherlands), FemArtNet (Spain), Marina Pinsky (Russia), Basel Abbas (Cyprus), Ruanne Abu-Rame (USA).
About the Biennale:
The Moscow International Biennale for Young Art is one of the largest and most ambitious projects in the field of young art, which will be implemented this summer for the sixth time. The mission of the Biennale, organized by ROSIZO-NCCA and MMOMA, is to discover new names, create conditions for the presentation of young authors to the public and develop contemporary art in the urban environment. The strategic project will traditionally take place at two venues - the Moscow Museum of Modern Art and ROSIZO-NCCA - and will present the best curatorial projects selected by the Biennale's expert council on a competitive basis. Lucrezia Calabro Visconti, an independent curator and co-founder of the non-profit research project CLOG, became the curator of the Main Project of the Biennale in 2018. It was she who gave the project the name "Abracadabra". Abracadabra favors time-based practices, dynamic images, and interdisciplinary research conducted collectively or individually that aims to activate spaces and landscapes through the concepts of performativity, dramaturgy, and agency (free will).
Partner of strategic projects
Project partners 
Lucrezia Calabro Visconti. Courtesy CLOG
On May 12, 2017, at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice, Ekaterina Kibovskaya, Commissioner of the 6th Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, introduced the curator of the main project of the Biennale, which will be held in Moscow in the summer of 2018. It was Lucrezia Calabro Visconti, an independent curator from Italy. The theme of the biennial proposed by her is “Abracadabra” (Abracadabra). According to Visconti, “The name ‘Abracadabra’ is a reference to an ancient spell and to Steve Miller’s 80s disco hit of the same name. I would describe the project as a dance floor metaphor, where the participants both have fun and follow certain rules, interacting in the most unexpected ways. That is why, when choosing artists, I am going to give preference to those who work with performative practices, video and sound.” Recall that since 2015, the biennale curator is, like its participants, a representative of a new generation.
Lucrezia Calabro Visconti, 27, is an independent curator and co-founder of the nonprofit research project CLOG. She graduated from the Faculty of Visual and Performing Arts at the Institute of Architecture of Venice, trained in Turin and New York, and is now studying under the curatorial program of the De Appel Center in Amsterdam. As an assistant and coordinator, she took part in a number of exhibition projects, curated by Francesco Bonami and Maurizio Cattelan. Collaborated with magazines TOILETPAPER and Le Dictateur. Author of articles in various art publications, creator of online projects Curatorshit, shitndie and Ketchup Drool. Lucrezia's recent curatorial projects include "Why is everyone so cute?" (Why Is Everybody Being So Nice, 2017, De Appel, Amsterdam), Good Luck, See You After the Revolution (2017, UvA, Amsterdam) and Dear Betty: Run Fast, Bite Hard (Dear Betty: Run Fast Bite Hard!, 2016, Gallery of Contemporary and Contemporary Art, Bergamo).
The Moscow International Biennale for Young Art has been held since 2008. Founders and organizers of the Biennale – Ministry of Culture Russian Federation, Department of Culture of the City of Moscow, State Center for Contemporary Art (NCCA) as part of the State Museum and Exhibition Center "ROSIZO", Moscow Museum of Modern Art.
Commissioner of the Moscow International Biennale for Young Art Ekaterina Kibovskaya hopes to expand the horizons of the Biennale and, in addition to specialists from different countries, to attract even more artists, curators and institutions from the regions of Russia. Acceptance of applications from artists under the age of 35 to participate in the main project of the Biennale will begin in autumn 2017 on the website
