We criticize: The main project of the V Biennial of Young Art. Strategic projects of the V Biennial of Young Art

On September 9, 2017 in Moscow, in the New Space of the Theater of Nations, a public talk was held by the curator of the main project of the 6th Moscow International Biennale of Young Art, Lucrezia Calabro Visconti, and the curator of the New Space of the Theater of Nations, Vera Martynov.

During the conversation, it was announced that they were accepting applications from artists and curators for participation in main and strategic projects6th Moscow International Biennale of Young Art.The meeting participants also discussed the concept of the main project of the 2018 Young Art Biennale, called “Abracadabra,” and talked about curatorial practices and work in interdisciplinary projects. Lucrezia Calabro Visconti spoke about the role young curators play today in major international projects like the Biennale, about her desire to work with local contexts and about her experience of collaborating with the famous artist Maurizio Cattelan.

Lucrezia Calabro Visconti, curator of the main project of the biennale:

« In 1999, MIT architecture and planning professor William Mitchell formulated the theory of the “presence economy,” which over the past few decades has blurred the boundaries between the professional, private, and social spheres of human life. More and more, the world's most valuable commodity is not consumer goods, but information, knowledge and experience, creating models of a dystopian economy based on pleasure. Personal efficiency, ideal realization of all personal capabilities and a good emotional state have become the main currency today, and in our 24/7 work mode it is increasingly unclear whether we consciously choose this way of life or simply no longer know how to act differently. How can you exercise your right to own your own time? What hidden strengths can we harness to counteract burnout?

The word “Abracadabra” was already attributed with magical properties in ancient times. By saying “Abracadabra!”, we start the process of transforming reality. Today, this imperative word carries with it a lot of associations, partly due to the fact that it has been appropriated by pop culture (just remember Steve Miller’s disco hit, which tore up the dance floor in the 1980s). The term “Abracadabra!” connects the growing attention within modern culture to esoteric, secret practices with modern suggestion and interest in unpredictable parties all night long, which were previously a form of protest and a means of escapism. Our omnipresence-seeking transhumanists are now making traditional forms of protest, such as the strike as absence, unacceptable. “Abracadabra” is looking for alternative ways of interacting with space and time in narratives, which can become a source of powerful energy. It is the fantastic transformative energy of these secondary and sometimes hidden narratives that forms the focus of the Abracadabra project, based on the subculture of the dance floor, which carries a charge from the past, as a stage where new forms of interaction are created and new, unexpected experiences are gained. Therefore, we place an emphasis on performative practices, video and interdisciplinary research, and among the project participants we would like to see artists who create or identify new forms and possibilities of today's relationships with space and time» .

During her first trip to Russia, Lucrezia Calabro Visconti visited the Cosmoscow fair, the V-A-C Foundation exhibitions at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art and the Ural Industrial Biennale. Lucretia also met with more than 50 young artists as part of a portfolio review at the Moscow “Red” Center, visited the MMOMA “Free Workshops” school and private artist workshops.

SELECTION OF PARTICIPANTS

From September 21 to November 20, 2017The website www.youngart.ru is now accepting applications from artists no older than 35 years old to participate in the main project of the biennale.

Curators no older than 35 years old can submit applications with concepts for participation in two strategic projects of the biennale, which will be held at two venues: the National Center for Contemporary Art (NCCA) and the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA).

Illustrations and additional press materials are available at: https://goo.gl/IDPv3F

ABOUT THE PROJECT

The Moscow International Biennale for Young Art is one of the most ambitious projects in the field of contemporary art in Russia. The objectives of the biennale are to discover new names, support and stimulate the creative initiatives of artists and curators of the new generation, create conditions for their public expression and, as a result, develop the environment of contemporary art. Project participants are given the chance to establish connections and establish creative interaction with the professional artistic environment. The Biennale creates a space to showcase the current strategies of a new generation of artists and curators.

The Moscow International Biennale of Young Art has been taking place since 2008. The project began with the annual festival of young art “Stop! Who goes?" (held by the State Center for Contemporary Art (NCCA) annually from 2002 to 2006 in collaboration with the Free Workshops school of contemporary art of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA)). The project acquired a new status due to the growing interest of young artists, curators and critics in it. Through the joint efforts of the NCCA and MMOMA, the concept of the Biennale of Young Art was developed. If previously the curators of the biennale were well-known international experts chosen by the organizers of the project (Daria Pyrkina, Daria Kamyshnikova, Catherine Becker, David Elliott), regardless of their age, then since 2015 the curator of the biennale, like its participants, is a representative of the new generation. The Biennale's partners are cultural institutions interested in the development of young art.

Olga Danilkina, Ivan Isaev, Elena Ishchenko and Boris Klyushnikov - about the loneliness of the object and the dictates of the viewer, interpassivity and its political power, the art market and its autonomy

" Deep inside". Main project of the V Moscow Biennale of Young Art, 2016

Preparations for the fifth biennale of young art took place in a tense atmosphere - next to the constant logos of the two organizers, NCCA and MMSI, a third one 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 search for private partners and sponsors. Nadeem Samman, who was included in the top ten young and promising curators according to Artsy.net, was chosen as the curator of the main project.

The result of his work was the exhibition “Deep Inside,” which, as is traditionally said, brought together 87 artists from 36 countries. The main project (like the entire biennale as a whole) aroused polar opinions, which were reflected, among other things, in a round table organized by the Artguide portal. Magazine 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 debate - about the main project and brand of the young biennale, the loneliness of the object and the dictates of the viewer, interpassivity and its political power, the art market and its autonomy.

Photos: Olga Danilkina

Ivan Isaev: The round table in Artguide dedicated to the youth biennale, to which Borey and I were also invited, was held with a noticeable dominance of Victor Misiano’s statements, in which the problems of the main project were touched upon somewhat in passing. Invitation to talk for publication on Aroundart.ru seemed 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 you are truly consistent in criticism, you can endlessly mediate statements, doubting their legitimacy. After criticizing the biennale, one can question the existence of an art institution and, ultimately, critically evaluate life itself on Earth. With this type of criticism, the content of the statement, the analysis of what was done, and not what could be done in an ideal situation in a vacuum, eludes. So, we have the format that 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 Pogam. Hug attempt #25. 2015

AI: I'll start with the main complaints about the project. I think that Samman’s exhibition is the epitome of hackwork on all levels: from the approach to the exhibition to the selection of works and installation. We are talking about a biennale - an international event that is designed to revive the local scene and 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 Trekhgornaya 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 have not noticed 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 a good idea 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 Ishchenko: 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 remark, 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 that this time he would experiment. Here I see a bias towards digital, post-digital, post-scientific, pseudo-interactive objects, post-Internet art, art in the digital era, such fantasizing about information flows, about the global network, about universal communication, about digital language - the fetishization of technologisms. Illustrations of this include Jeremy Santiago-Horseman's naïve work, which romanticizes the aesthetics of binary code: a wall with crumbling plaster. The artist sees a fact and visualizes it in an obvious way. Or Eddie Wagenknecht's sort-of-interactive box of wires and light bulbs, which, according to the catalog description, is "circuit boards and network cables assembled together... (which) symbolize the cloud, social networks, data, leaks"; In addition, this box “intercepts and records anonymous data received from nearby networks WiFi" And many other works are also extremely primitive visualizations of metaphor - so many that their number seriously exceeds a certain critical number of “background” works for a large exhibition, making one wonder about the curator’s too careless approach to the selection of works.

Jeremy Santiago-Josman. Sanctuary (a b). 2016

BC: On the contrary, it seems to me that this is the best youth biennial 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 the local context, which become a maxim.

AI: Not exactly a maxim, but rather one of the aspects of the quality of the biennale.

BC: Yes, but we need to consider not them, but the questions posed by the biennale itself, and in the form of interaction: theme - work, viewer - work, viewer - curatorial decision, and so on. In this context, it will become clear that the curator decided on a very bold form. What did the biennials that became popular in the 90s and 2000s do? They were very contextualized and dedicated to relationships and communication. First - the aesthetics of interaction, then - political activism. These projects drew the viewer into interaction, tried to turn the viewer into a citizen, to move him to some position. And the current Samman Biennale clearly shows that this position, when you must seduce the viewer into action, into some kind of response, is already recognized by young artists as violent. I am attracted by the absence of this civil coquettishness, the requirement to do something, think about the context, participate in something. And if you look at it from this point of view, it becomes clear that the works were selected very precisely. There are a lot of videos in the exhibition, for example, and this is such a narcissistic medium, closed in on itself, a very contemplative object. And most objects, on the contrary, are non-interactive; on the contrary, they are lonely and closed in on themselves.

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 Pyotr Davydchenko with a dive into the mud. The exhibition contains many works that are perceived in an interpassive manner, creating communication without communication, connection 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, just like young art. In fact, this is a distinctive feature of young people. Mark Fisher called this depressive hedonia - when you can't do anything except have fun. But this narcissism is paradoxical: when we demonstrate isolation on ourselves, we precisely find points of interaction, we understand that we are somehow connected.

Another important point is thematic. Here the theme is connections, communication – 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 presents absolutely non-communicative works. For a long time there has been this ideology of the surface, the slide defined by digital technology, and Deep Down offers a different mode.

Today, various performative lectures and parallel programs are popular, and it seems that the exhibition is no longer needed. Many people criticized this biennale for this. But it shows what can be expressed in biennial form – the 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 connection between so many loneliness. It seems to me that many people feel outside the community, so this biennial is connected to the context - it clearly resonates with my feelings.

AI: It just seems to me that this exhibition was made according to the patterns of the biennale ten years ago, when a set of qualities appeared for such conventional exhibitions. A mishmash of works brought from different parts of the world in order to illuminate some abstract issues. At the Artguide discussion 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 determines the isolation from the local context that is present in the main project of the biennale.

BC: The biennial you're talking about is Jean Hubert Martin's Mages of the Earth. But the current youth biennale is done completely differently.

AI: No, I’m talking about this student form of the biennale, which arose thanks to their boom, when almost every point of the earth that claims to have some significance in contemporary art had its own. As a result, they are made according to the same recipe: a problem is taken out of nowhere, formulated as generally as possible, artists produce various items on this topic, and everything is united 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 other than the global. If we move to the local, 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 quite hopeless - this gesture will only multiply the information noise and is unlikely to go beyond the manipulation used by the same mass media. I really liked this distance from such topics.

BC: Me too, because provincialism is when you cannot claim the right to your own universality, to the fact that you can think universally. And this is especially important for the youth biennale. During the discussion at Artguide, many expressed the idea that there should not be a youth biennale, that it 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 it’s a biennale and you need to somehow strain yourself. But I realized that in fact, youth biennales provide an opportunity for young people to be serious and to be taken seriously, without these paraphernalia of “youth” - light art, parties, fun. And this exhibition counters that: it is tense, dark, pre-apocalyptic, hopeless. Vanya talks about the post-Internet, but he often emphasizes bright colors, but this exhibition is dim and monochrome. You will not make such an exhibition as part of the Mincemeat festival.

EI: This is an interesting idea, but it seems to me that the vector set by the phrase “biennial of young art” is not very correct. It provokes self-reflection - what youth is, what it means to be young - which may not be entirely necessary.

OD: Yes, I can’t watch exhibitions thinking about whether they are young artists 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 Ghislain, rightly say that in Europe there is no longer a division into generations in contemporary art. But in Russia, it seems to me, the context is such that here the concept of “young artist” makes sense. 1989, the fall of the socialist bloc, the USSR led to a serious generation gap. The logic of decades still emerges for us, 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 against actionists is an Oedipal dispute.

EI: Yes, of course, there are artists who live in the post-Soviet space, and there are those who lived in the Soviet space. But those who live in the post-Soviet space will soon cross this milestone of 35 years, which is such a universal 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 was particularly against it. But this is what I rather want to say. Everyone is worried that glorifying 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 puny children who cannot find themselves in life.

EI: It seems to me that this is exactly what the last biennale – “Time to Dream” – was about: about endless frustrations, about dissatisfaction and the impossibility of action. This biennale, if it speaks about it, does so very indirectly.

In general, I agree that this biennale is about the loneliness of the object and the breakdown of communication. In fact, the works in the exhibition displace the viewer: on the top floor, everything is blocked by the sound of an Andrew Norman Wilson video, a stupid pop song that mixes with the sound of other works, blocking them and creating a space in which it is impossible to be in, uncomfortable. And in the mirror room you become split and cannot concentrate, fix your attention on some object. You can't get in touch with him. This becomes a metaphor for the displacement of the viewer from the exhibition space and the loneliness of an isolated object. It seems to me that this is well manifested in the architecture of the exhibition, the display solutions: on the one hand, everything is exhibited efficiently and beautifully, all the compositions are balanced, but the further you go and begin to peer into the works, this feeling of initial integrity and harmony begins to fall apart. The whole exhibition is falling apart - there is no integrity, almost all the works are closed in on themselves. This is an attractive idea, but it still depends on some kind of object production, on the market - most of the objects in the exhibition look like well-made 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 cannot find him.

BC: The system has not been structured this way for a long time, and these objects are not looking for their buyer.

EI: It shouldn't be built like that.

AI: There are two main ways in the world to monetize an artist’s name: 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 are participating 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 without their contextualization, an exhibition as a set of items in a white cube.

BC: No I do not agree. Firstly, because this is a program exhibition where theme and form are closely related. Besides, maybe I'm being too cynical, but I don't see anything wrong with people doing things to sell. It's bad when this becomes a criterion for evaluating work. But you don’t evaluate Dostoevsky by the number of characters he wanted to write in order to repay his debt. And a lot of beautiful and important works were made, which were then sold well.

Secondly, now it’s much easier to have a traditional get-together. It is interesting to consider this youth biennale in the context of the latest 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 the objects are closed, but at the same time I recognized myself in many of the works. I don’t think that the biennale ignores the local context, no, it addresses 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 thing in some sense, but this coincidence becomes possible only when you are alone in a room doing something. Everyone is connected by this. This isolation.

OD: I liked that many of the 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, Daria Koltsova’s work with patterns on windows is interesting; it clearly demonstrates this degree of interaction with the local context.

This isolation resonated very much with my feeling about the situation of our art community. None of the videos at the exhibition have Russian subtitles; the premises have not been renovated. Gradually, sitting in our little world, we begin to understand how small it is and how limited everything is. By and large, no one needs us. And this moment is well felt at this biennale.

AI: The Biennale basically shows that no one needs us. The lack of subtitles is a marker; they don’t require a big budget at all. From my point of view, this is further evidence 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 Lundgaard. A hundred explanations of the same thing. 2015

BC: To me these issues seem less important since the viewer should be removed from this exhibition. The dictatorship of spectatorship has existed for a long time and it needs to be removed.

AI: You’re not proposing to remove this dictatorship with art for art’s sake and autonomous forms of self-expression?

BC: No. First, this is not simply a 19th-century concept of art for art's sake. The context is different, the form of relationship between these objects is different. And in general, this idea is not so much about autonomous art, but about a certain politics of relations that is being established today between people, between objects, between anything. This policy is implemented not directly, but through intermediaries. We communicate interpassively, not actively. Today people no longer join hands and 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 endorses the status quo. You cannot deny that it is now beneficial for the authorities to put people in their solitary confinement cells.

BC: No. It is beneficial to hang on the horizontal bar and look at public art. What caused the 2008 crisis? Because people simply could not pay their loans. They are tired. Capitalism did not take into account this point, that people could simply block out.

EI: But at the same time, the works at the exhibition indicate that they were produced, that effort and money were spent on it. Even the video is not found footage or raw documentaries, which require minimal input and can be produced alone. No, the videos at the exhibition show that the process of their production was expensive and required the involvement of a team. If these are objects, then they are often made either using new technologies or made skillfully. That is, the fatigue and passivity that the exhibition as a whole speaks of contradicts the method of their production, contradicts, in fact, the artistic strategies of the participants.

BC: In the case of this exhibition, we are not talking about people in general. The 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 the PR woman of one of the exhibition participants from Russia with a request to write about her for Aroundart or interview her, because she is beautiful, young and one of several Russian artists who was accepted into the main project. This strategy of becoming famous and marketable is the opposite of the passivity we are talking about.

AI: I don’t understand Bory’s reaction, who doesn’t see a contradiction in this. We are accustomed to criticizing the position when the incentive for an artist’s work is his career growth. We are used to criticizing 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 at the exhibition are very primitive and of poor quality. I also cannot explain the choice of some Russian artists by anything other than the fact that Samman literally pushed them through.

EI: How do you generally assess the choice of Russian artists? On the one hand, we see foreign artists who are more or less famous, who collaborate with galleries, on the other – Russian artists, half of whom even we don’t know.

AI: I have two feelings about this choice. On the one hand, I learned several new names that seemed very interesting to me and that I will keep an eye on. Many works are powerful - the extremely appropriate and memorable video with a diver by Pyotr Davydchenko, the aforementioned patterns on the windows of Daria Koltsova, “Sharovers” by Daria Pravda, the simple but accurate wall “Not a Word about 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 concept haters. I can’t imagine that the curator attracted these works of his own free will.

BC: I rate this choice excellent! It's great that there are so many unknown artists. And I don’t agree with Vanya’s words that this is corruption. Samman selected artists based on requests. And the ideal situation, when the curator has an overview of everything, is simply impossible. This is a utopian vision. In addition, I don’t see anything wrong with people doing their own promotion professionally and hiring PR people.

About the work. I saw not so much bad work 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 with the application. But these works don't look terrible. Each work plays its own role in the overall idea.

EI: What works do you think are central?

BC: For example, with diver Pyotr Davydchenko. Multiple reflections, paranoidity. He constantly dives into this mud, like a sewer man doing Sisyphean work. This work echoes the hall of mirrors. I remember Andrew Renville's failed state flags, the Sharovers. 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 called Boreas, I would like to mention “Jericho” by Lee Nevo, “War Halls” by Katarina Grutsay. Works with material - from Ekaterina Burlyga or from Revital Cohen and Thor van Balen. Eli Maria Lundgaard’s video “A Hundred Explanations of the Same Thing” seems to me to be one of the central ones for the biennial with this title. Flags, of course; I’ll even name them a second time! This is one of the few works that should have been shown 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! Selfies are a very important phenomenon that speaks of loneliness. Remember Bruce Nauman's work Depression square? Nauman made such an envelope, going deep into the depths, and called it the abyss of despair. But skaters started using it as a ramp and started taking selfies there. Taking selfies in the abyss of despair! You take selfies because you are locked in a world of self-valorization. It’s the same here: you take a selfie against the backdrop of a black abyss.

OD: I don't really understand the criticism of art as an industry in the context of a large international event. What else can you expect from him? Why does it bother us so much that an artist has a PR person?

EI: The industry needs to be criticized within the framework of the biennale. Our system is structured in such a way that during the biennale there is a flurry of events - everyone wants to be included in the biennale catalogue. This in itself is not bad - if this system worked smoothly. But after all, their organizers find out which events were chosen for the parallel program almost before the opening and begin frantically preparing them, although at another time they could have done them better and more thoughtfully, albeit without this tick of participation in the special program of the biennale. The Triumph Gallery begins to collaborate 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 for the Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art will come from.

OD: At a briefing about her future, they clearly said that she most likely would not have money from the state budget in the near future.

EI: Well, we started looking for sponsors.

AI: The Biennale is an occasion for officials to shell out money, 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 also has good qualities that lie in the area of experimentation, the temporary and fragility of works (their other temporality), and dialogue with the local context. The question is: should we try to get rid of them and turn the biennale into another show of autonomous works. Or vice versa: we must preserve them and turn them into a biennial canon. These are two completely different, but mutually vulnerable positions.

Artists from all over the world came to the Russian capital

From June 8 to July 31, the capital will host the sixth Moscow International Biennale of Young Art. More than 50 young artists from all over the world, the winners of the open competition, will present their works. The age of participants and curators is up to 35 years inclusive.

The only biennale in the world, in which only young artists take part, will cover several venues: the Rassvet business district on Krasnaya Presnya, the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA), the State Center for Contemporary Art as part of ROSIZO, the AZ Museum and a special venue in TSUM. The total space of the biennale projects is comparable in size to Red Square. The program has 5 blocks: 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 show current works by talented young artists. After all, among them there are those who in 20-30 years will become known throughout the world, whose works will adorn the collections of the best museums, says Ekaterina Kibovskaya, commissioner of the biennale. - We often do not realize that many recognized works of art were created by young people. Vereshchagin wrote “The Apotheosis of War” at the age of 29, Picasso “Girl on a Ball” - at 24, Duchamp shocked the world with “The Fountain” at 30.

The main project of the biennale will be the exhibition “Abracadabra”. From 1,500 applications, project curator Lucrezia Calabro Visconti (Italy) selected 58 works and united them with a common theme, referencing both an ancient magic spell and the hit of Soviet discos - the song “Abracadabra” by Steve Miller.

The open competition for this biennial gave me a unique opportunity to explore the practices of young artists from all over the world. The process of selecting artists for the Abracadabra project was very exciting, says Lucrezia Calabro Visconti. - “Abracadabra” carries many meanings; it is one of the most universal words, sounding the same in many languages. The history of Soviet discos, where Steve Miller's Abracadabra was played, and esoteric practices became the starting point for a narrative that touches on a variety of topics: strikes, metabolism, hypochondria, attention, intimacy, sleep, understatement.

“Abracadabra” will take place in the “Rassvet” quarter on Krasnaya Presnya. “Rassvet” is distinguished by a unique creative atmosphere created by old architecture coupled with modern design solutions. The complex unites the former buildings of the Myur and Meriliz furniture factory, which supplied goods to the imperial court. Now these buildings are being reconstructed using advanced engineering technologies and carefully preserving their architectural appearance.

After viewing the main project, it is worth checking out the exhibition “Thank you, please, excuse me” at the State Center for Contemporary Art as part of “ROSIZO”. “Thank you, please, excuse me - these are three “magic words”,” says exhibition curator Zhenya Chaika. She offered her own vision of the topic: a house, an ordinary house with its problems, conversations, rustles and everyday life. Playing with emotions. The exhibition recreates the space of a house, which, like any house, has a bedroom, living room, kitchen, corridor, and attic. Moving in a circle, the viewer must independently determine the starting place, relying on his own feelings and intuition.

Following the logic of the house, he will rise to the second floor, the conventional second tier of the bed, where you can literally read dreams. At the exhibition, the viewer is invited to read other people's dreams and write their own, offering them for reading. Everything in the exhibition requires independent actions by the visitor: even the explications exist in the Print-on-demand format - print on demand; the viewer will read the explanatory text only if he really needs it.

Ekaterina Kibovskaya.

The exhibition with the intriguing title “Ideal Age” is dedicated to the crisis of age in the modern world and the understanding of this phenomenon in Russian art of the 20th-21st centuries. It consists of two self-sufficient and at the same time complementary parts, which are presented at different sites - at the MMOMA educational center and at the AZ Museum.

At MMOMA, the basis of the exhibition, which structurally plays on the classic topos of the “three ages,” will be made up of works from the museum’s collection, as well as projects by some invited artists of the younger generation. Both more general socio-psychological themes will be touched upon: the cult of youth, the beauty industry, the frustration of growing up and aging, ageism, as well as age-related aspects of artistic creativity, the format of “young art”.

In turn, three installations will be created for the AZ Museum, which will be located in unexpected, secret areas: in the courtyard and on the rear facade of the museum building, in the virtual space of “augmented reality”.

From the parallel program of the biennale, the personal exhibition of Alexander Shchurenkov “Zugzwang” at the Fragment Gallery stands out. The author's artistic practice is based on the study of psychological processes associated with self-knowledge, self-determination, self-awareness and, ultimately, personal identification. The artist is primarily interested in the dependence of these processes on a wide range of traps of existence, the contradictory essence of which, interaction with vision, knowledge, time, recording information, forgetting it, as well as subconscious change, he reveals in his works.

The main material for Shchurenkov are everyday objects, objects and phenomena of everyday life, which are signs that record changes in existence, making the absent present, that is, related simultaneously to the past, present and future.

Lucrezia Visconti. Photo: Nikolay Zverkov.

The exhibition is based on the evolution of the understanding of memory as a philosophical category - from its Platonic perception as a physical “imprint on wax”, to the interpretation of memory as a trace, meaning, according to Jacques Derrida, “original tracing and erasure”. Traces point to what was - according to Martin Heidegger, they belong to a category he calls "Das Dagewesene", that is, a "no longer existing being" that "has not passed away, but was here." Traces are also signs that have become such without any intention; Mark Bloch calls them “unwitting witnesses.”

From June 8 to July 31, 2018, the capital will host the sixth Moscow International Biennale of Young Art. More than 50 young artists from all over the world, the winners of the open competition, will present their works. The age of participants and curators is up to 35 years inclusive. The commissioner of the biennale is Ekaterina Kibovskaya, the curator of the main project is Lucrezia Calabro Visconti.

“The goal of the biennale is to show current works by talented young artists. After all, among them there are those who in 20-30 years will become known throughout the world, whose works will adorn the collections of the best museums, says Ekaterina Kibovskaya. - We often do not realize that many recognized works of art were created by young people. Vereshchagin wrote “The Apotheosis of War” at the age of 29, Picasso “Girl on a Ball” at 24, Duchamp shocked the world with “The Fountain” at 30.”

Main project

“The open competition of this biennial gave me a unique opportunity to explore the practices of young artists from all over the world. The 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, sounding the same in many languages. The history of Soviet discos, where Steve Miller's Abracadabra was played, and esoteric practices became the starting point for a narrative that touches on 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 from the Faculty of Performance Arts of the IUAV Institute of Architecture of Venice 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 unites the former buildings of the Myur and Meriliz furniture factory, which supplied goods to the imperial court. Now these buildings are being reconstructed using advanced engineering technologies and carefully preserving their architectural appearance. The Rassvet quarter is the third project for the integrated development of territories by KR Properties, along with Red Rose and Danilovskaya Manufactory.

Location: Business district "Rassvet" 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” 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 State Center for Contemporary Art as part of "ROSIZO". The curators were selected by the biennale's expert council based on an open competition.

In her projects, Barbara Cueto (Spain/Germany) pays special attention to the social, political and environmental consequences of the use of technology, explores the movement of society in the post-human era, and studies the role of art in the world of technology. Barbara has collaborated with the Museum of Contemporary Art in Seoul, the Volksbühne theater in Berlin, the De Appel Center for Contemporary Art in Amsterdam, and Bétonsalon in Paris. The project This site is under Revolution 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, we should not forget about the subtle aggression that constantly occurs in the digital space, explains Barbara Cueto. - The human factor is lost in the flow of photos, comments and information, while corporations collect this data and use it for commercial purposes. How do we confront these systems of oppression? The exhibition is trying to grapple with this and work through these ideas to show acts of resistance today.”

The theme of the magic spell will be continued by Zhenya Chaika (Russia), a philosopher by training, curator of the Art Residence program of the Ural Industrial Biennale, for which in 2012 she was nominated for “Innovation” - the main Russian award in the field of contemporary art.

“Thank you, please, excuse me - these are three “magic words” that we have known since childhood. From an early age, a person understands that politeness makes it possible to come to an agreement, reconcile and leave a good impression of oneself, says Zhenya Chaika. - Over time, these words, and, if we talk about modern society, then also brackets and emoticons, become the key that opens all doors. However, we, adults, should think about what the resource of magic is? How many times do these words need to be repeated for them to lose their power? As part of the exhibition, we will look at the world that “magic words” create, and at the ruins that remain after its destruction.”

Exhibition This site is under Revolution (“Revolutionary work is underway”)

Place: Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA on Gogolevsky)

Address: Gogolevsky Blvd., 10

Exhibition “Thank you, please, excuse me”

Place: National Center for Contemporary Art as part of ROSIZO

Address: Zoologicheskaya st., 13, building 2

Special project. Focus

This year, one of the museums that has not previously worked with young art will join the biennale. It will be the AZ Museum, which is engaged in preserving, studying and updating the legacy 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 Andrei Egorov and Anna Harutyunyan, research associates of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art.

“For the Moscow International Biennale of Young Art, age plays a vital role. As part of our exhibition, we decided to think about what role age plays in our lives, how we comprehend it, accept it and whether we accept it,” explains curator and head of the scientific department of MMOMA Andrei Egorov.

The exhibition “Ideal Age” consists of two complementary parts, presented in different spaces. Part of the exhibition at MMOMA will play with the concept of “three ages”, touch on issues of the cult of youth, ageism and the frustration of growing up, and also touch on the topic of creative age among artists. The exhibition will be based on works from the museum’s collection and projects by invited young artists. The AZ Museum will present three site-specific installations: in the courtyard and on the rear 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 take place. Italian artists Ambra Pittoni and Paul-Flavien Henriques-Sarano and the curator of the main project, Lucrezia Calabro Visconti, are responsible for the direction. 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: TSUM, 5th floor

Address: Petrovka st., 2