We criticize: The main project of the V Biennial of Young Art. VI Moscow International Biennale of Young Art

Organizers: National Center for Contemporary Art, ROSIZO, Moscow Museum of Modern Art.

Viewers of the V Moscow International Biennale will see more than 55 exhibitions young art this summer. The main project of the biennale, “Deep Inside,” will be presented in the space of the Trekhgornaya Manufactory. Exhibitions of the two Strategic Projects will be held at the State Center for Contemporary Art and the Moscow Museum of Modern Art. Special Projects can be seen at the Multimedia Art Museum, the VINZAVOD 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 (“Bezmestie”), Voronezh (“In the Glorious City of Voronezh”) and Izhevsk (“Izhevsk Speaks. Part 3”) present their projects in Moscow.

This year's participants include six educational institutions: Russian State Humanitarian University, Institute "Baza", the program "School of Young Artist" of the PRO ARTE Foundation and the North-Western branch of the NCCA, the Yekaterinburg Academy of Contemporary Art, the Moscow School of Photography and Multimedia named after A. Rodchenko and the School of Contemporary Art "Free Workshops" "Moscow Museum of Modern Art. The parallel program of the biennale included 40 exhibitions. Visitors will also enjoy an extensive discussion and educational program.

STRUCTURE OF THE BIENNALE

Main project "Deep Inside"

2 Strategic projects

16 Special Projects

40 exhibitions as part of a parallel program

Discussion and educational program

MAIN PROJECT

Theme: "Deep Inside"

Place: exhibition spaces of Trekhgornaya Manufactory

Curator: Nadeem Samman

Participants: 87 young artists and artistic associations, representatives of 36 countries

STRATEGIC PROJECTS

Title: Time for Reasonable Doubt

Place: National 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 YA Z I

Place: Moscow Museum of Modern Art in Ermolaevsky Lane

Curator: Joao Laia

Participants: 18 young artists from 16 countries

Details in the press release

SPECIAL PROJECTS

IN chronological order 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 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

ABOUT SR. 10 years of the 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/Cooked

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. Space of memories

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 "VINZAVOD"

07.07 — 10.08

Inside art

Department store "Tsvetnoy"

23.06 — 24.07

Kernel level

Street art gallery "Sweater", Yekaterinburg

01.07 — 17.07

Placelessness

ARTPLAY Design Center

09.06 -19.06

After the fact

Museum and Exhibition Center "Worker and Collective Farm Woman"

House-palace-salon-outback-museum-America

(the project takes place at several sites)

23.06 — 31.07

Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Gogolevsky 10

15.07 -31.07
Salon, Kostomarovsky lane. 3, page 12

23.07 — 31.07
House of Architects' Creativity, Moscow region, Leninsky district, Vidnoye, village. 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 “Klyuch” at Trekhgornaya Manufactory. Artists wishing to participate are encouraged to showcase their portfolio to leading contemporary art experts on the global art scene: Director and Chief Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art Herzliya Aya Luri; art critic and Therese Möllenhoff, curator of the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Contemporary Art in Oslo. Portfolio review provides an opportunity to discuss completed and ongoing projects, find out the opinions and receive comments from internationally renowned curators who have decades of experience working with young artists.

Those interested are asked to send their portfolio to the project address: [email protected] until June 20.
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 NCCA, initiator and chairman of the Expert Council of the Moscow International Biennale of Young Art Daria Pyrkina.

Details on the website

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: Round table in Artguide, dedicated to the youth biennale, to which we were also invited with Borya, was held with a noticeable dominance of the statements of Victor Misiano, 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 central places 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 assembled together and network cables... (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 it is best project youth biennale of all that I have 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 was this ideology of the surface, the sliding given 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 corners light in order to illuminate some abstract issue. 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 scope of 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 pedals 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, which later 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. Firstly, this is not just a concept of art for the sake of art of the 19th century century. 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 stimulus for the artist’s work is his career. 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 can't explain the choice of some Russian artists nothing other than the fact that Samman was literally pushed through them.

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 didn't see so much bad work, as well 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 hall of mirrors. I remember Andrew Renville's failed state flags, the Sharovers. Also Felix Kissling. I can't say that this is some kind of 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 special program biennial 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, lying in the area of ​​experimentation, temporality and fragility of works (their other temporality), 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.

On May 12, 2017, at the Ca' Foscari University in Venice, the commissioner of the 6th Moscow International Biennale of Young Art, Ekaterina Kibovskaya, 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, a young independent curator from Italy.

The theme of the 2018 Biennale, proposed by Lucrezia Calabro Visconti, is "Abracadabra".

Lucrezia Calabro Visconti, curator of the main project:
“The Moscow International Biennale for Young Art is known for its ability to open artistic world new horizons and prospects. I am grateful to the organizers for their trust and for the opportunity to organize the exhibition in the inspiring context of Moscow. The main project of the biennale “Abracadabra” will be dedicated to modern life, in which the boundaries between private, professional and public spheres. The title “Abracadabra” is a reference to an ancient spell and to Steve Miller’s disco hit of the same name, popular in the eighties. I would describe the project as a metaphor of a dance floor, where participants both have fun and follow certain rules, interacting in the most unexpected ways. That’s why, when choosing artists, I’m going to give preference to those who work with performative practices, video and sound.”

Ekaterina Kibovskaya, commissioner of the Biennale:
“The Moscow International Biennale of Young Art is not only the main project, which next year will be overseen by Lucrezia Calabro Visconti, but also strategic projects, special, parallel and educational programs. In 2016, more than 60 exhibitions were held in Moscow as part of the biennale, and separate projects were opened in Yekaterinburg and Nizhny Novgorod. This is a lot, but I am sure that in 2018 we will be able to attract, in addition to foreign guests, to our large-scale international festival even more artists, curators and institutions from Russian regions. This will undoubtedly expand our horizons."

Vasily Tsereteli, Executive Director of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA): “The Moscow International Biennale for Young Art is one of the youngest biennales in the world, but it already has impressive experience and achievements that one can be proud of. For us - ROSIZO and MMOMA, the organizers of this cultural initiative - it is a great honor to announce the curator and theme of our biennale within the walls of Ca’ Foscari University. And I hope that in a few years, the artists participating in the Biennale for Young Art will be able to take part in the Venice Biennale.”

In the fall of 2017 on the website www.youngart.ru Applications will begin to be accepted from artists and curators under the age of 35 to participate in the main and strategic project of the biennale.

Moscow International Biennale of Young Art - one of the most ambitious projects in the field of contemporary art in Russia - has been taking place since 2008. 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.

Lucrezia Calabro Visconti (Lucrezia Calabrò Visconti, b. 1990, Turin) - independent curator, co-founder of the non-profit research project CLOG. Graduated from the Faculty of Visual and Performative Arts at the Institute of Architecture of Venice. Master of Philosophy from Ca Foscari University (Venice). Participant of the curatorial program CAMPO12 of the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation in Turin; trained in the Curatorial program at Artists Space (New York). Studied in the curatorial program of the De Appel Center (Amsterdam). As an assistant and coordinator took part in the work on the projects Tutttovero in Castello di Rivoli (Turin) (curated by Francesco Bonami) and Shit and Die in Palazzo Cavour (Turin) (curated by Maurizio Cattelan, Miriam Ben Salah and Marta Papini). Collaborated with TOILETPAPER and Le magazines Dictateur. Author of articles in various art publications, creator of online projects Curatorshit, shitndie and Ketchup Drool. Among Lucrezia's recent curatorial projects: “Why is everyone so nice?” (Why Is Everybody Being So Nice, 2017, De Appel, Amsterdam), Good Luck, See You After the Revolution, 2017, UvA, Amsterdam and Dear Betty: Run Faster, Bite Harder (Dear Betty: Run Fast Bite Hard!, 2016, Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art, Bergamo).

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 of Young Art! MMOMA announces additional set performers to participate in three biennale projects:

1. Performance by Peak Wonka at the opening of the biennale (June 8 from 20.30 to 21.15). Anyone can become a participant in the performance here. Proficiency in English and other languages ​​is preferred foreign language, or sign language.

2. HyperReadings program - 3 reading groups during the biennial (please note that each reading group has two days of work). If you are a keen reader, love to share information, are computer literate and have an open mind modern technologies- then this project is for you! Apart from what has already been said, all that is needed is your time.

3. At the Art&Feminism workshop (July 22 from 16:30 to 19:00). This project is perfect for librarians, students, art historians or enthusiasts who want to search for information resources with us, first get to know each other, and then introduce the project participants to the basics of editing Wikipedia.

A detailed description of all projects is below. Your application can be sent until June 3 inclusive to Valeria’s email: valeria.. Go for it!

1. Open-call to participate 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: anyone is invited to participate in the performance, regardless of age or gender;
Language skills: Proficiency in English or another foreign language or sign language is preferred. However, this is not a mandatory requirement;
Performance tags: voice objectification, your voice as power, voice generators and artificial intelligence, body language, body language, non-verbal communication and empathy.

The artist’s wishes for potential performers: “I am looking for performers with experience in participating in performances (in any field). Your ability to speak loudly and also control your body movements, at least to a small extent, will be useful. Your participation in rehearsals will be required, lasting +/- 4 days and participation in the performance. You will be given 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 individual performer. The rehearsals will partly shape and inform the final version of the performance.”

- Project name
- your first and last name
— describe what experience you have in participating in performances and attach photo/video documentation of the events in which you took part

Please note: the form must be completed on English language; up to 1500 characters with spaces

Your application can be sent until June 3 inclusive to Valeria's email: valeria..

2. Open-call for events throughout the Biennale

Open-call for volunteers - people who are passionate about reading and literature to participate in the discourse program HyperReadings - an open space for collaborative learning during the exhibition.

Volunteer requests: We are looking for people willing to take part in a seminar in the exhibition space at least once a week during the readings. If you are passionate about reading, love 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 gladly invite you to join it. Under "reading" in in this case we suggest understanding everything that can be read, including texts, images, films, digital and non-digital objects. Reading lists will not be purely academic or elitist; moreover, you will be able to create them yourself.

HyperReadings is an open source software system developed and maintained by Sean Dockray and Benjamin Forster. Julia Bavyka also joined this collaboration, contributing to the physical manifestation of this elusive infrastructure. We invite you to join us!

Volunteers are encouraged to use the public program space to implement 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 provided full access to create and modify events at their discretion - they can attend meetings on any schedule, and can also invite other people.

Workshop Types: Please note that in addition to these fixed dates, impromptu events may arise at any time. Follow Google Calendar to receive 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
During this type of event, collaborative learning is planned: You will learn about the new p2p web technologies on which Hyper Readings and Dat Library are built, as well as about Beaker Browser and Dat Protocol. To participate in the seminar you will need a laptop - please take your personal computer with you.

2.2. "Experimental reading group"
Date and time: Saturday June 23 and July 14, 17:00-18:30
We offer three different ways launch a reading group. The volunteer who leads the project can choose between the following options:

1. Reading one text out loud together. Each participant is asked to read one page, where the text is passed around 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 select texts of their choice. Ideally, this type of seminar should be an improvised game, where each participant reads his own text, entering into dialogue with the text of other participants. Another possible scenario for such a seminar could be a comparison of a comparative list of all texts read during the seminars.
3. Classic reading group, where participants are invited to first read the text and then 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, joint discussion of reading lists is encouraged. What is your reading list for today? What could he be like?

We invite people to participate in the project when choosing different ways for the formation of a social environment. The ways that we offer could be as follows: seminars can be conducted 1) on the basis of 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 anyone who takes part is part of the project and contributes to the modeling of social forms of knowledge production.

Please indicate in the application form for this event:
- 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 “Art&Feminism” group

Are you a librarian, art student or enthusiast? We need your special skills and expertise for the world's most popular online research platform! For the first time, the project of the group “Art&Feminism” based on Wikipedia “Edit-a-thon” will take place in Russia. As a volunteer, you will solve tasks such as searching for information resources, helping project participants and introducing them to the basics of Wikipedia editing. Volunteers do not need experience editing Wikipedia; 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 encourages Wikipedia to be edited to expand content about gender, feminism, and art. The project is based at the Museum of Modern Art (New York), with parallels with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Tate Gallery (London); Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto); MAXXI (Rome); Smithsonian Museum American art(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, resulting in the creation and addition of more than 33,000 articles in Wikipedia.

"Art&Feminism" has expanded its scope to include other curatorial projects. “Art&Feminism” projects are reviewed by Artforum, The New The York Times, The New Yorker, CBC, Canadian Art and the 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 indicate in the application form for this event:
- 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 form must be filled out in English, up to 1500 characters with spaces.

Your application can be sent until June 3 inclusive to Valeria's email: valeria.. Go for it!