Organizers: National Center for Contemporary Art, ROSIZO, Moscow Museum of Modern Art.
More than 55 exhibitions will be seen by the audience of the V Moscow International Biennale young art this summer. The main project of the Biennale "Deep Inside" will be presented in the Trekhgornaya Manufactory. Exhibitions of the two Strategic Projects will be held at the National Center for Contemporary Art and the Moscow Museum of Modern Art. Special projects can be seen at the Multimedia Art Museum, the WINZAVOD Center for Contemporary Art, the ARTPLAY Design Center, as well as in the Moscow Region, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Izhevsk and other venues. The cities of St. Petersburg ("Bezmestye"), Voronezh ("In glorious city Voronezh") and Izhevsk ("Izhevsk speaks. Part 3").
This year's participants include six educational institutions: Russian State Humanities University, Institute "Baza", program "School of a young artist" of the PRO ARTE Foundation and the North-Western branch of the NCCA, Yekaterinburg Academy of Modern Art, Moscow School of Photography and Multimedia named after A. Rodchenko and School of Contemporary Art "Free Workshops" of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art . The biennale's parallel program included 40 exhibitions. Also, visitors will find an extensive discussion and educational program.
STRUCTURE OF THE BIENNALE
Main project "Deep inside"
2 Strategic projects
16 Special projects
40 exhibitions within the parallel program
Discussion and educational program
MAIN PROJECT
Theme: "Deep Inside" (Deep Inside)
Location: exhibition spaces of Trekhgornaya manufactory
Curator: Nadeem Samman
Participants: 87 young artists and art associations, representatives from 36 countries
STRATEGIC PROJECTS
Title: The Time of Reasonable Doubt
Venue: State Center for Contemporary Art
Curators: Silvia Franceschini and Valeria Mancinelli
Participants: 10 young artists from 9 countries
Details in the press release.
Title: G I P E R S V Y Z I
Location: Moscow Museum of Modern Art in Ermolaevsky Lane
Curator: Juan Laia
Participants: 18 young artists from 16 countries
Details in the press release
SPECIAL PROJECTS
Chronologically by opening date
02.06 — 04.09
19/92 First. Anticipation of the 25th anniversary of the School of Contemporary Art "Free Workshops" MMOMA
04.06 — 02.07
Izhevsk says. Part 1
Udmurt Republican Museum of Fine Arts, Izhevsk
04.06 — 02.07
Izhevsk says. Part 2
Museum of the history of the city of Izhevsk
02.06 — 31.07
Izhevsk says. Part 3
23.06 — 24.07
procrastination
Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Gogolevsky 10
27.06 — 19.09
PRO SHR. 10 years of Rodchenko School
Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow
01.07 — 31.07
Bar "Joy"
Center for Creative Industries "FABRIKA"
04.07 — 21.08
Workshop 2016. Personal connections
Moscow Museum of Modern Art on Tverskoy Boulevard
12.07 — 28.08
Raw / Boiled
Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Gogolevsky 10
16.07 — 04.12
Life of the living
National Center for Contemporary Art, Volga-Vyatka branch, Nizhny Novgorod
28.07 — 28.08
Between us. Memory space
Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Gogolevsky 10
21.07 — 10.08
Houseware
Studio KOP
29.06 — 31.07
In the glorious city of Voronezh
Center for Contemporary Art "WINZAVOD"
07.07 — 10.08
Inside art
Department store "Tsvetnoy"
23.06 — 24.07
Kernel level
Gallery of street art "Sweater", Yekaterinburg
01.07 — 17.07
no place
ARTPLAY Design Center
09.06 -19.06
post hoc
Museum and Exhibition Center "Worker and Kolkhoz Woman"
House-palace-salon-otshib-museum-america
(the project is taking place at several sites)
23.06 — 31.07
Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Gogolevsky 10
15.07 -31.07
Salon, Kostomarovsky per. 3, page 12
23.07 — 31.07
House of creativity of architects, Moscow region, Leninsky district, Vidnoye, der. Sukhanovo
04.07 — 19.07
Central House of Architect
02.07 — 31.07
Victor Skersis (apartment exhibition), 880 Laurel Drive, Bethlehem, PA, 18017, USA
PARALLEL PROGRAM
As part of the parallel program of the Biennale, 40 exhibitions will be held.
The list of projects is available in the application.
DISCUSSION AND EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM
On July 1 at 12:00 and 14:00, a series of portfolio reviews will be held at the Tech-Hub "Key" at Trekhgornaya Manufactory. Artists wishing to participate are invited to showcase their portfolios to leading contemporary art experts on the global art scene: Aya Luri, Director and Chief Curator of the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art; art critic and Teresa Möllenhoff, curator of the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Contemporary Art in Oslo. The Portfolio Review provides an opportunity to discuss completed and ongoing projects, hear the opinions and get comments from internationally renowned curators who have decades of experience working with young artists.
If you are interested, please send your portfolio to the project address: [email protected] by June 20th.
The selection of participants is carried out on a competitive basis by the curator of the discussion and educational program, art critic, deputy director of the National Center for Contemporary Art, initiator and chairman of the Expert Council of the Moscow International Biennale for Young Art Daria Pyrkina.
Details on the website
Acceptance of applications: 01.06 - 03.06.2018
MMOMA, GOGOLEVSKY 10
Curator: Barbara Cuerto
A great chance for those who would like to become not just a visitor, but a full-fledged participant in the Strategic Project of the VI Moscow International Biennale for Young Art! MMOMA announces an additional set of performers for participation in three biennale projects:
1. Performance by Wonka Peak at the opening of the Biennale (June 8 from 20.30 to 21.15). Everyone can become a participant in the performance here. English proficiency preferred foreign language, or sign language.
2. HyperReadings program - 3 reading groups during the biennale (please note that each reading group has two days of work). If you are passionate about reading, like to share information, and are good at using a computer and are open modern technologies- then this project is for you! All that is needed other than what has already been said is your time.
3. At the Art&Feminism workshop (July 22 from 16:30 to 19:00). Librarians, students, art historians or enthusiasts who want to search for information resources with us, get to know themselves first, and then introduce the basics of Wikipedia editing to the project participants, are perfect for this project.
A detailed description of all projects is below. Your application can be sent until June 3 inclusive to Valeria's mail: valeria.. Go for it!
1. Open-call for participation in the performance of Puck Vonk
Date and time of performance: 8/06/2016, 20:30-21:15;
Rehearsals: 5/06/2016 - 8/06/2016;
One performance during the opening of the Biennale;
Details: any person is invited to participate in the performance, regardless of age or gender;
Language Proficiency: Proficiency in English or another foreign language or sign language is preferred. However, this is an optional requirement;
Performance tags: voice objectification, your voice as a force, voice generators and artificial intelligence, body language, body language, non-verbal communication and empathy.
The artist's wishes to potential performers: “I am looking for performers with experience in performances (in any field). Your ability to speak loudly, as well as to master the movements of your body, at least to a small extent, will be useful. Your participation in rehearsals, lasting +/- 4 days and participation in the performance will be required. You will be offered a written script to perform, however, he will be very open to your suggestions, and the actual performance will be a combination based on the script and the uniqueness of the particular performer. The rehearsals will partly shape and complement the final version of the performance.”
- Project name
- your first and last name
— describe your experience of participating in performances and attach a photo/video documentation of the events in which you took part
Please note that the application form must be completed English language; volume up to 1500 characters with spaces
Your application can be sent until June 3 inclusive to Valeria's mail: valeria..
2. Open-call for events throughout the Biennale
Open-call for volunteers - people who are passionate about reading, literature - to participate in the HyperReadings discursive program - an open space for joint learning during the exhibition.
Wishes for volunteers: We are looking for volunteers to take part in a seminar in the exhibition space at least once a week during the readings. If you are passionate about reading, like to share information, and also know how to use a computer and are open to modern technologies, then this project is for you, and we are happy to invite you to join it. By "reading" in this case, we propose to understand everything that can be read, including texts, images, films, digital and non-digital objects. Reading lists will not be purely academic or elite, moreover, you will be able to form them yourself.
HyperReadings is an open source software system developed and maintained by Sean Dockray and Benjamin Forster. Also joining this collaboration is Julia Bavyka, helping to physically manifest this elusive infrastructure. We invite you to join us!
Volunteers are encouraged to use the public program space to pursue their own interests, however, below are some ideas for potential workshops and events. We've also created a Google calendar to help you schedule events quickly. All volunteers are given full access to create and edit events as they see fit - they can attend meetings on any schedule, and they can also invite other people.
Workshop Types: Please note that in addition to these fixed dates, impromptu events may occur at any time. Follow the Google calendar for up-to-date information - https://bitly.com/2HSBjEy.
2.1. "Peer-to-peer network"
Dates and times: Saturday 16 June and 7 July, 17:00-18:30
Cooperative learning is planned during this type of event: You will learn about the new p2p web technologies that Hyper Readings and Dat Library are built on, as well as Beaker Browser and Dat Protocol. You will need a laptop to participate in the seminar - please bring your personal computer with you.
2.2. "Experimental Reading Group"
Date and time: Saturday 23 June and 14 July, 17:00-18:30
We offer three different ways start a reading group. The volunteer who leads the project can choose between the following options:
1. Joint reading of one text aloud. Each participant is invited to read one page, where the text is passed in a circle.
2. open mic, where any participant can read any text at their discretion. Participants are encouraged to bring their own books or choose texts of their choice. Ideally, this type of seminar should be an impromptu game, where each participant reads his text, entering into a dialogue with the text of other participants. Also, a possible scenario for such a seminar can be a comparison of a comparative list of all the texts read during the seminars.
3. Classical reading group, where participants are invited to read the text first, and then to conduct a public discussion. It is suggested that the recommended reading list be used as a guide.
2.3. Reading group: "Reading and writing"
Date and time: Saturday 30 June and Friday 20 July 17:00-18:30
In the context of this group, a collaborative discussion of reading lists is proposed. What is your reading list today? What can he be?
We invite people to participate in the project when choosing various ways for the formation of the social environment. The ways we suggest are as follows: seminars can be conducted 1) based on existing knowledge and individual interests, 2) compiling and sharing reading lists, 3) conducting joint readings, 4) creating new reading lists so that they become accessible to other participants. It is important that everyone who participates is part of the project and contributes to the modeling of social forms of knowledge production.
Please, in the questionnaire for this event, indicate:
- Project name
– tell us what type of events you would like to take part in and why
- please share information about your favorite books
3. Open-call for participation in the "Edit-a-thon" project of the group "Art&Feminism"
Are you a librarian, art student or enthusiast? We need your specific skills and expertise for the most popular online research platform in the world! For the first time, the Art&Feminism project based on Wikipedia Edit-a-thon will take place in Russia. As a volunteer, you will perform tasks such as searching for information resources, helping project participants and getting them acquainted with the basics of editing Wikipedia. Volunteers do not require Wikipedia editing experience, we will teach you these basics before the project.
Art + Feminism is a do-it-yourself and do-with-others campaign that is open to educating people of all gender identities and expressions, and invites Wikipedia to be edited to expand content on gender, feminism, and art. The project is based in the Museum of Modern Art (New York), with parallels with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Tate Gallery (London); art gallery Ontario (Toronto); MAXXI (Rome); Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington, DC); and hundreds of others. Thus, the project was founded in 2014, and more than 10,000 people in more than 800 events around the world took part in the "Edit-a-thons" project of the Art&Feminism group, as a result of which more than 33,000 articles were created and supplemented in Wikipedia.
Art&Feminism has expanded its scope to include other curatorial projects. Art&Feminism projects are reviewed by Artforum, The New York Times, The New Yorker, CBC, Canadian Art and BBC, as well as co-founders who have been named the world's leading thinkers by Foreign Policy Magazine. Art&Feminism is led by Sian Evans, Jacqueline Mabay, Mackensie Mack and Michael Mandiberg. We invite you to find out more information on our website: http://www.artandfeminism.org/.
Please, in the questionnaire for this event, indicate:
- Project name
- your first and last name, as well as education
— please tell us how you understand feminism and why you are interested in the project
Please note: the questionnaire is filled out in English, the volume is up to 1500 characters with spaces
Your application can be sent until June 3 inclusive to Valeria's mail: valeria.. Go for it!
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 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 participants both have fun and follow certain rules, interacting in the most in an unexpected way. 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 latest 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.
Ekaterina Kibovskaya, commissioner of the Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, hopes to expand the horizons of the biennale and, in addition to specialists from different countries, attract more 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
This summer, Moscow has become not only the football capital of the world, which has attracted more than half a million guests from more than thirty countries. IN Russian capital Many lovers of contemporary art also went, but for a completely different reason - from June 8 to July 31, this is the sixth time The Moscow International Biennale for Young Art is a unique youth art forum.
The Moscow Youth Biennale has been held since 2008 and over time has become one of the most ambitious and large-scale projects in the field of contemporary art in Russia, presenting the latest artistic and curatorial strategies. Since last year, the age of not only artists, but also curators should not exceed 35 years. Exhibitions and other events within the framework of the Biennale cover several venues, including the buildings of the once famous furniture factory Muir and Maryliz, and now the renovated Rassvet business district on Krasnaya Presnya, where the main project is being deployed. The 27-year-old Lucrezia Colabro Visconti, an independent curator from Italy, who is the author of the original exhibition concept called " Abracadabra". In an open competition, she selected 58 works by young artists from over 1,500 submissions from around the world. The main project is continued by strategic exhibitions: one called “Revolutionary Works Underway” at MMOMA on Gogolevsky Boulevard (curated by Barbara Cueto), dedicated to the role of art in the world of technology, and the second, “Thank you, please excuse me” (curated by Zhenya Chaika) will take place in State Center for Contemporary Art. In addition, the program includes special projects, parallel and educational programs.
Our browser Elena Rubinova talked to the curator Lucrezia Colabro Visconti and young artists Sabrina Chow (USA)) And Vassilis Papageorgiou (Greece) about the concept of the main project of the Biennale, the place of the national and international in contemporary art, as well as what "soft power" means for young artists in the era of globalization.
How did this concept of abracadabra appear in your concept? What does it mean in this case?
Lucrezia Visconti: As a curator, I had to find a way to visualize phenomena that at first glance seem unrelated to each other: hypochondria, attention, disappointment, intimacy, sleep, understatement, and the concept of abracadabra turned out to be such a formula that accommodates all those diverse forms artistic research, which we selected for the main project. “Abracadabra” is a word used in many languages, including Russian, and we often use it, but we don’t always think about where it came from. And in different cultures oh and epochs it is endowed different meanings. Linguistically, it also expresses an ancient magic spell, and at the same time it is a performative concept that has the power to influence the surrounding reality. Before coming to Russia, I didn’t know at all how this word is understood in Russian: that it means “nonsense”, “nonsense” and that in the Soviet Union it was one of the most popular songs Steve Miller Band, which was played in discos.
For almost a whole year, while the project was being prepared, you worked closely with 50 representatives of your generation - young artists from different countries. How do you see the culture of dialogue and interaction in the era of the very Abracadabra» that the project is exploring? How important is it today?
Lucrezia Visconti: I am convinced that contemporary art, and especially the exhibition process, provides an excellent opportunity to build a dialogue, it is a platform for the interaction of different cultures. In this case, the project also allowed all the artists to come to Moscow to participate in the installation of the exposition, get to know each other personally and communicate. And although “abracadabra” is nonsense that accurately describes the modern information world, where it seems that the boundaries are erased, and communication goes into virtuality, no one will deny that it is no less important to develop relationships and live communication between artists from different countries. Everyone gathered in Moscow - both foreign participants and Russian ones, including those from other cities. Such a rare opportunity is hard to overestimate.
Building such common language and cultural bridges somehow different for your generation, and if so, in what way?
Lucrezia Visconti: Undoubtedly. In the economy of "presence", in which, according to J. Derrida, we all exist, events happen many times faster, and in certain circumstances this allows me to turn horizontally - for example, if I need to find someone in Japan, then it is much faster easier and faster than, for example, 25 years ago. But at the same time, depth is not achieved - after all, if everything happens at a speed, then how to immerse yourself in a meaningful conversation and find a way to get to know each other deeper? And the younger generation is looking for these new forms of communication.
In the course of working on this project, have you encountered a situation where the artists had doubts or decided not to take part in the project on political reasons? After all, now is not the most simple tenses in relations between Russia and many Western countries ...
Lucrezia Visconti: When was announced open competition to participate in the Biennale, I shared this information with all my colleagues, and for some artists the question of participation really became a dilemma that everyone solved for themselves in their own way. In most cases, I managed to convince them, because participation in such a project is also a matter of trust in the curator. I must say that I did not experience any pressure from the organizers of the Biennale - the Ministry of Culture and ROSIZO, everything was built in the highest degree confidentially. I am convinced that young artists simply need to build cultural bridges, and they want to do this, because the political situation is changing and fast, and they still have a long professional path in art.
Sabrina Chow: I will not hide that at some stage I thought about whether it was worth going to Moscow. But I really enjoyed working with Lucrezia, as well as the concept of the exhibition itself, so, in the end, I decided to participate and I'm very glad about it. After all, art can function in different ways: on the one hand, it is a part of global peace and global politics, and on the other hand, the art process can also be a special space where at times you can hide and find a moment to find peace.
Vasilis Papageorgiou: How contemporary artist, I work in a variety of circumstances and countries - I travel a lot with exhibitions, especially in Europe, I live in art residences. For me, the opportunity to participate in the Moscow Biennale is an opportunity to show my work, and if it has content, then the political situation or context is not so important.
What is for you as representatives younger generation thirty-year-olds, means the concept of "soft power"? We see that in modern society post-postmodernity, which, in fact, the current biennale explores, certain concepts have shifted ...
Sabrina Chow: In my opinion, the concept of "soft power", so popular in the 80s and 90s, has really changed, primarily because people identify themselves differently. Along with the rise of nationalist tendencies in many countries, the artists themselves are increasingly speaking in their own name, rather than positioning themselves as representatives of a particular nation or country. I remember that even ten or fifteen years ago our government supported artists more, and today, in the era of globalization, people exist in a much more fragmented way. This is very noticeable to me - I am from Los Angeles, although now I live in London, and before that I lived and studied in Holland for some time. All these processes are similar wherever you are, but cultural dialogue helps to overcome these processes.
Vasilis Papageorgiou: I can only agree with this opinion. When it comes to nationalism, it is best for the artist not to identify himself in terms of belonging to a nation, but to concentrate on self-representation. In Greece, over the past ten years, we have had to rethink the concepts of national and international after the country's entry into the European Union. But now everyone has become accustomed to the "new normal". And the younger generation adapted to new reality, starting from changes and building, accordingly, their world.
What does this project and collaboration mean for you, including with young Russian artists?
Lucrezia Visconti: For me, this large-scale and very ambitious project has become a kind of test - for the way of thinking and my own ability to think wider, outside the usual framework. I am very grateful that I had the opportunity to work on it.
Vasilis Papageorgiou: I am here for the first time, and I would very much like to stay in Moscow longer - unfortunately, we did not have time to see much, because we were busy editing the exhibition all the time. Moscow is a city with fantastic energy, and I really hope to visit here again.
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 for 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 best project the most youthful biennale I've 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. In fact, this is a distinctive feature of 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 that in fact, 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 uses bright colors, but this exhibition is not bright, 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. This youth biennale It is interesting to consider 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 a position when the stimulus for the artist's work is his career. 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 works as 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.
