Weekly Roundup (3 May 2018)

Blok’s Opening Weekend Picks

May 3

• Moscow, Russia: Cliffs and Convulsions at Gallery Electrozavod. Artists: Ed Atkins (London), Wade Gayton (New York), Sveta Isayeva (Moscow), Anya Kurbatova (St. Petersburg, Voronezh), Michael I. Smith (Detroit), Sveta Shuvaeva (Moscow). How not to be deceived, being fascinated by the dance of unknown machines? Their surrogate bodies and breathing can hardly be distinguished from ours. Is it worth moving away from the strictness of the registering device of desire or accepting a grotesque violation for the only “safe”?

May 4

• Berlin, Germany: The Berlin Art Book Fair 2018 at Haus der Kulturen der Welt. Founded in 2009, MISS READ is Europe’s major Art Book Festival, dedicated to community-building and creating a public meeting place for discourse around artists’ books, conceptual publications and publishing as practice. From May-6.

• Bucharest, Romania: Cristian Răduță: The extra mile – Opening Reception at Nicodim Gallery. A row of exhausted pseudo-animals seem to be in the homestretch of a marathon. With their long polystyrene necks, they remain in-line, civilized, desperately glancing ahead without even noticing us. They are convinced that they will find their answers and their liberation on the other side of the wall, and they are ready to do anything to get there. Cristian Răduță utilizes the gallery’s architecture to create a snapshot of a play about to end, proposing a journey among and through shapes that contaminate each other. The characters seem to be created as a matter of urgency, through methods that sometimes went out of control. Temporary materials are mistaken as permanent-and the other way around-until the idea of improvisation becomes relative. Until June 9.

• Vilnius, Lithuania. Paroda Dark Drawn / Tamsos širdis. Dark Drawn aims at being a powerful statement through the medium of drawing. Through recent decades drawing has fortified its position as a challenging opponent to other media, capable of astounding audiences with untraditional and unexpected manoeuvres. In order to present this to a wider audience, we have attempted to compile a drawing exhibition that combines traditions with contemporaneity. Artists: Vanna Bowles, Ian Damerell, Algirdas Jakas, Robert Johansson, Bas Ketelaars, Lynette Smith. Until June 10.

• Copenhagen, Denmark. PARANORMAL / one-evening group exhibition @ abandoned gas station. Paranormal is the first half of the two-part-exhibition-venture at semi-public spaces, set in Copenhagen (May 4) and Berlin (May 17, tba). The exhibitions lean on time as a concept to be embodied, on the experiential to be spatialized, a space to be untold. It unravels slowly in the context of a year-long event cycle Embodied Space conducted by Kabinetas. Now operating from Berlin, this nomadic project space implements experimental collaborations to enter the realms of spatiality, collectivity, performativity, ambiguity. Usually acting in the footnotes and staying off the beaten paths with some risky deception in mind, Kabinetas now acts as a space in space gladly without one to call its own. More info: www.kabinetas.com.

May 5

• Amsterdam, Netherlands. Brace for Impact at De Appel. Brace for Impact, the final project of the 2017-18 De Appel Curatorial programme, critically investigates the relationship between technology and affect. From April 20 to May 20, various presentations will take place across several locations in Amsterdam including De Appel, Stedelijk Museum, De School, and Schiphol Airport. Various dates, times and locations.

• Bucharest, Romania: Decebal Scriba / Memory Clouds at Anca Poterașu Gallery. At the beginning of the 1970s in Bucharest, Decebal Scriba, b. 1944, was one of the most striking and cutting-edge personalities. His experiments are reviewed today as an integral part of the avant-garde tradition of this key moment in the history of post-war art. During the 70’s and the 80’s, Decebal Scriba developed a consistent and elaborate body of work, of conceptual and performative approach, addressing issues of both formal and textual language, the analysis of spatial representation systems, symbolic gestures and forms. Through performance, a genre that suited the underground context of Eastern Europe, the essence of all these gestures and actions was indeed extolled and dissolved into the “memory clouds”. Until June 30.

May 7

• Riga, Latvia. Riga Photomonth 2018 opening week. Riga Photomonth opening week will offer the most intensive programme of events – exhibition openings, talks, performances, projections, portfolio review and other events. The official opening is scheduled for 9 May 6pm. Various dates, times and locations. The full programme is available on the website: www.rigaphotomonth.com

Open Calls

• Call for Curators: BBX Crit Sessions: “On the occasion of the 10th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art (June 9 – September 9, 2018), the curatorial team has invited curators Antonia Majaca and Sohrab Mohebbi to rethink and expand the format of the Curators Workshop. After a number of successful, theme based workshops held in relation to the 4th–9th editions of the Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, this iteration, as proposed by the workshop directors, will be centred on the biennial exhibition itself and encourage a dynamic exchange with the Berlin Biennale staff, curators, contributors and participants. In cooperation with Allianz Cultural Foundation, BMW, Goethe-Institut, and Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations (ifa), Berlin Biennale calls for applications from emerging curators/practitioners to participate in a 10-day workshop with a group of twelve to fifteen participants.” Deadline to apply: May 8. For more info.

• Call for Applications: Residency program MINI/Goethe-Institut Curatorial Residencies Ludlow 38, the Goethe-Institut New York. Located on Manhattan’s Lower EastSide, Ludlow 38 has provided for curatorial experimentation in the tradition of the German “Kunstverein” since 2008. The residency program’s mission is to introduce new, international perspectives to the local art scene and to foster dialogue within the greater aesthetic and political context of New York and the United States. Deadline to apply: May 31. For more info.

• Call for Proposals: The European ArtEast Foundation (EAEF)  is an inspiration for the 1950’s and 1960’s. The purpose of this project is to give art historians and curators the opportunity to carry out an important history of Eastern Europe. The Foundation’s goal is to stimulate the development of an important political context. Deadline to apply: June 4, 2018. For more  info.

Art News from Around the Blok

• Moscow, Russia: Winners of the Innovation Art Prize announced, as per The Arts Newspaper Russia:

The first prize was given to Kirill Savchenkov, a prize-winner in the nomination “New Generation”. His project on the change of optics and the mutation of the types of Office of Sensitive Activities / Application Group was presented at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA) in the fall of 2017 as part of the Carte Blanche cycle, the VA-C fund.

The curators of the year are Maria Kramar and Karen Sarkisov, the authors of the “Experiences of Inhuman Hospitality”, another VAC project from the “Carte Blanche” cycle, which explored the relationship between material objects and the environment, and was also presented to MMOMA.

The whole hall rose when they announced that the co-founder of the Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, Joseph Bakshtein, received the Innovation Award for his contribution to the development of contemporary art (an out-of-competition nomination).

In another out-of-competition nomination – For Support of Contemporary Russian Art – Vladimir Smirnov and Konstantin Sorokin (Vladimir Smirnov and Konstantin Sorokin’s Foundation) became laureates.

“Artist of the Year” was named Vladimir Logutov, who showed his exhibition “The Next Level” about ways of observing art within the jubilee cycle “Farewell to Eternal Youth” in the Contemporary Art Center “Winzavod” . A “project of the year” was the IV Ural Industrial Biennale, which was held in Yekaterinburg and the Sverdlovsk region with the title theme “New Literacy”