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Russian Pavilion
at 52nd Venice Biennale
RUSSIAN PAVILION
52 INTERNATIONAL ART EXHIBITION
LA BIENNALE DI VENEZIA 2007
10.06 - 21.11.2007
Ministry of Culture and Mass Communications
of the Russian Federation
Federal Agency for Culture and Cinematography
PRESS CONFERENCE & PHOTO OPPORTUNITY
Thursday 7 June, 1530hrs.
If you would like to attend please RSVP
to
Anna Cusden
anna.cusden@kallaway.co.uk
+ 44 207 221 7883/+39 333 560 88 29 (contact
in Venice)
Click I Hope, the Russian pavilion's
group exhibition explores what it means
to live in an age of constant media bombardment
and perpetual connectivity through the internet.
How do we navigate the volume and intensity
of mass media that assails us and how do
we find a frame of reference for deciding
what to assimilate and what to reject? How
do we interpret parallel cyber realities
that grow and mutate with a life of their
own and where do we find hope for the future?
The Russian pavilion has been commissioned
by Vasily Tsereteli, the acting Director
of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art and curated
by Olga Sviblova, director of the
Multimedia Art Centre, the umbrella organisation
of the Moscow House of Photography, one
of the most dynamic institutions in Russia.
This is the first year that Russian businesses
have supported contemporary art in Venice
with such enthusiasm. Russian collectors
are coming of age and showing their interest
in the country's booming art scene by supporting
multiple initiatives either by facilitating
major art projects in Russia or enabling
Russian art to spread all over the world.
The Russian pavilion presents installations
by AES+F Group, Andrey Bartenev, Arseny
Mescheryakov, Julia Milner and Alexander
Ponomarev.
Alexander Pomomarev and Arseny
Mescheryakov focus on the relationship
between the real world and the media. Shower,
an installation tiled with monitors that
simultaneously broadcast 1000 TV channels
from around the world, demonstrates the
absolute dominance of mass media, a medium
that traps people in an "information
cell". Two switches in the shower change
the on screen content, allowing the viewer
to choose breaking news, sports, commercials,
pornography, nature programmes and so on.
However, the shower cannot be turned off.
Ponomarev's Windshield Wipers and
Wave offer ways of escaping the media's
assault on our senses. In Windshield
Wipers television screens take up the
entire wall. Just as windshield wipers clear
away the dirt that sticks to a car's windshield,
wipers on each screen wash away transmitted
programmes with a view of water. At one
point in the loop they are replaced by a
live feed from a camera situated on the
balcony of the Russian pavilion showing
the Venice Lagoon. The skyline is again
and again replaced by the media onslaught,
despite the mechanical wipers stubborn and
methodical struggle against it.
Wave is an eight metre glass tunnel
filled with water. The wave's pulsation
is dictated by the rhythm of the breath
of the artist, whose image is projected
on the screen. This installation is a metaphor
for creative freedom and the demiurgical
power of art. The wave, tamed and controlled
by the artist, redirects the movement "back
to nature", cutting through the pavilion's
exhibition space. Ponomarev's Wave splits
both the media and the exhibition spaces,
offering an opportunity to contemplate the
rediscovered horizon.
Projects by AES+F, Andrey Bartenev and Julia
Milner variously analyse the phenomenon
of the virtual world, whose headlong expansion
has created eschatological prophecies and
new visions.
The Last Riot by the AES+F Group
(Tatiana Arzamasova, Lev Evzovich, Evgeny
Svyatsky and Vladimir Fridkes) is a 3D animated
model of cyberspace, generated by the media
and the real world; it grows like a laboratory
experiment that devours its creators and
mutates in inexplicable ways. The fantasy
landscape is populated by glamorous teenage-androgens
who live a timeless virtual existence. To
the music of Wagner, these youths riot and
struggle in a war against themselves, a
war without difference between aggressor
and victim, male and female, good and bad,
fate and free will. This is an eternal fight
without blood or pain. Each generation invents
its own version of an artistic apocalypse
in music, painting and other forms of art.
The Last Riot is a post-apocalyptic
vision that has come to replace them.
Andrey Bartenev's installation, Connection
Lost is a glass tunnel filled with fifty
LED spheres with the words "connection
lost" circling in their orbit. A heart
inside each sphere symbolizes the potential
frustration that awaits us in the world
of virtual and indirect connections. At
the same time, the very message about lost
connections multiplies and reproduces itself
with LED letters and mirrors, creating a
new integral connective structure. This
magical discotheque, where all the revellers
are close yet dance alone, is a metaphor
for the alienation of virtual, simulative
communities that exist to give constant
hope of an encounter.
Julia Milner, the youngest member
of the project, has created her own version
of a new cyber behaviour game, Click
I Hope (www.clickihope.com). Her installation
is an LED display on the façade of
the Russian pavilion which broadcasts her
online project. The sentence "I hope"
is translated into the 50 languages of the
countries participating in the Venice Biennale
and scrolls across the screen. By clicking
on the words, or touching the screen at
the pavilion, the words blink to life and
respond. A counter appears and shows the
number of people who have selected that
particular language. The words in each language
grow or shrink in proportion to the number
of clicks on them in different parts of
the world. A general counter on the screen
communicates the number of people participating
in the project at any given moment. We do
not know what motivates people to click
on the words "I hope" in any language.
But a click for "I hope" is not
a click for "I kill", which is
what most computer games teach us to do.
Click I hope is a virtual accumulator
of hope, an emotion that is so important
to each of us, our country and the world.
END
Further press information:
www.kallaway.co.uk/russian-pavillion.htm
Kallaway
Anna Cusden
International Public Relations
+44 (0) 207 221 7883 / +44 7967 836279
anna.cusden@kallaway.co.uk
Marka:ff
Bruno Stoefs
Coordinator International Group
+7 95050 3108
bstoefs@markaff.ru
In Venice
Anna Cusden
International Public Relations
+39 333 560 88 29
+39 041 520 77 89 (Fax number for Hotel
Monte Carlo)
Interviews with the artists, curator and
commissioner can be arranged in Venice from
4th to 9th June 2007. For more information
contact Anna Cusden.
Vasily Tsereteli: Commissioner
Vasily Tsereteli is the acting director
of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, an institution
that in the last few years has managed to
put contemporary art on the map in Russia.
The MMOMA attracts a wide audience of all
ages and shows both Russian and international
artists.
Olga Sviblova: Curator
Olga Sviblova has been a driving force
in Russian photography and contemporary
art since the late 1970s when she began
organising exhibitions for artists she knew,
with her first official exhibition for young
artists taking place in 1987. In 1988 her
film Black Square on the Russian Avant-Garde
received a prize at the Cannes Film Festival.
She has also constructed a photographic
history of 20th century Russia from scratch,
and in the process rediscovered many avant-garde
masters including Alexander Rodchenko, El
Lissitsky and Boris Ignatovich. The national
archive currently has more than 80,000 pictures,
many of which were assumed lost forever,
and a permanent home at the Moscow House
of Photography which opened in 2000. In
2006 she was awarded the government prize
for the best curatorial project at the first
Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art.
Last year Olga Sviblova curated the Max
Penson exhibition in London, one of the
highlights of the Russian Act Festival 2006.
This Festival celebrates contemporary Russian
culture in all its forms. The multi-disciplinary
programme brought Russian flavored dance,
theatre, classical music, opera, jazz and
photography to London for the third year
in a row. In 2007 the fourth edition of
the Russian Act Festival will present a
wide variety of events, among which a multi
ethnic show produced by Andrey Bartenev,
swinging Russian jazz, pumping electronic
music as well as an intimate rendez-vous
with Russian folk and a much anticipated
retrospective of Rodchenko, curated by Olga
Sviblova.
Artists:
AES+F (Tatiana Arzamasova, Lev Evzovich,
Evgeny Svyatsky + Vladimir Fridkes)
Andrey Bartenev
Arseny Mescheryakov
Julia Milner
Alexander Ponomarev
With the support of:
Foundation "Russian Avant-guard"
TSUM
Interros" Publishing program
Art-Media Group
MasterCard Europe
Hennessey
TMK
RI Group
END OF ALL
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