Moscow Biennale

THE FEDERATION OF CURATORS

Yevgenia Kikodze

Article:

CURRENT EXHIBITIONS

Magazine issue:

#2 2007 (15)

The Second Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art has certainly become a significant event in Russia’s cultural life. Almost every Moscow organization in any way related to contemporary art - including museums, galleries, centres of contemporary art, private foundations and even the trendiest of clubs - have tried to make a statement by their participation in the preparation of the exhibition calendar. Their wider purpose is to accurately and proudly present contemporary art in Russia, as well as invite the numerous guests of the Biennale to acquaint themselves with Russian art, both from today and from the recent past.

"People live not only in the objective world of things, and not only in the world of public activity as they commonly assume; instead, they are to a larger degree affected by the very same language they use as a means of communication in this society.".

Edward Sapir

SOTS-ART. Political Art in Russia

Andrei Yerofeev

Article:

CURRENT EXHIBITIONS

Magazine issue:

#2 2007 (15)

The Second Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art has closed in the Russian capital, and as part of it the Tretyakov Gallery held a third exhibition in its long-term cycle “Trends in Russian Art”. Following the “Abstractions” and “Russian Pop-Art” shows, the new exhibition was dedicated to Sots-Art, and the historical and typological retrospective of the same name was held between 2 March and 1 April 2007. Outside Russia, Sots-Art is, without doubt, the best-known trend in Soviet art of the second half of the 20th century. Alongside pieces by Russian artists, the “Sots-art” exhibition also showed work by their Chinese colleagues, who were greatly influenced by this movement. Occupying five rooms on the third floor of the Tretyakov Gallery on Krymsky Val, the exhibition covered approximately 2,000 square meters