Exhibitions in GARAGE: March 2019

Dear Friends,

This spring’s exhibition season at Garage opens with two major shows of artists whose trajectories have diverged from the big movements in the art of the late twentieth century. British-Pakistani artist Rasheed Araeen (b. 1935) and Russian creator Pavel Pepperstein (b. 1966) were only connected to the developments in international art tangentially, their practices focused on the production of autonomous systems that offered living alternatives to the art-historical normativity and the latest trends in contemporary art. Their retrospective shows at Garage not only explore the little-known pages in the newest history of art, but also carry an important message about “invisible” artists that for various reasons have remained at the periphery of the general picture of contemporary art, and that are now being presented to the wider audience.

The figure of the artist as a human with a complex biography is central to the new season at Garage, and this is not only reflected in the Museum’s exhibitions program, but also in its major infrastructural projects. In February 2019, Garage opened its artist studios in VDNKh and launched a program of artist residencies that offers practitioners from Russia and abroad free and fully equipped working spaces as well as opportunities to develop professional contacts, meet other artists and curators, and benefit from an extensive program of lectures, workshops, and discussions. Additionally, in summer 2019, a new temporary summer cinema on Garage Square will be designed by SYNDICATE—a team of young architects based in Moscow.

Further expanding and diversifying its activities, Garage continues to explore the potentialities of a contemporary museum. This spring we will also present Bureau des transmissions, an important project that revisits education strategies at the museum. Bringing together various initiatives by Russian and international artists, this two-month forum will create a platform for inquiry into the contemporary museum and the possible evolution of its functions that will allow for a much-needed renewal—following the natural cycles.

We are looking forward to seeing you this spring!

Katya Inozemtseva
Senior curator

 

GARAGE EXHIBITIONS

PAVEL PEPPERSTEIN. THE HUMAN AS A FRAME FOR THE LANDSCAPE

February 28 – June 2, 2019

Introduced to the circle of Moscow Conceptualists as a child, since the beginning of his career Pepperstein has been one of the most prolific mythmakers in Russian contemporary art. He is an inventor of systems, universes, languages, cities, and political projects. Pepperstein’s solo exhibition at Garage reviews the key myths he has created since the 1970s: from imaginary countries for which he has developed detailed maps and national symbols to ecstatic or, on the contrary, ultra-logical visions of the future; from religions, cults, beliefs, and rituals to alternative realities that exist in parallel dimensions and modalities.

The theatricalized exhibition design featuring a sequence of galleries, each inhabited by a living and developing landscape or system, presents a number of repeating elements, including patterns. In line with the practice of the Moscow Conceptualists, these patterns have a meaning deeper than mere “decoration.” Pepperstein believes that, in the words of Jacques Soulillou, “the purely decorative betrays a loss of roots. It has no genealogy, it is orphaned, and refers to a complete break with context.” The exhibition is driven by the playful exploration of various levels of reality, the search for magic and strange narratives in the folds of the real. It is transformed into a collection of wonderful landscapes, like the series of paintings from which the title is taken.

For The Human as a Frame for the Landscape, the artist will produce around twenty new works including drawings, videos, and installations. The first volume of his memoirs will be published to mark the exhibition.

 

RASHEED ARAEEN. A RETROSPECTIVE

March 8 – May 26, 2019

This spring, Garage presents the first solo exhibition in Russia of Rasheed Araeen (b. 1935, Karachi, Pakistan), spanning six decades of work by the seminal practitioner who has had a profound influence on generations of artists, writers, and thinkers around the world. Previously shown at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, A Retrospective is the first comprehensive survey of the artist’s work, revealing the scope of his expanded artistic practice, from the early experiments in painting in Karachi and groundbreaking minimalist sculptures in London, to key political pieces from the 1970s and 1980s—including his pioneering writing, editorial, and curatorial projects—as well as a selection of his new geometric paintings and wall structures.

As part of A Retrospective, the project A Cultural Atlas by the artist and researcher Vali Mahlouji will be shown on the Museum’s mezzanine. A panorama of the intellectual history of the twentieth century, it reflects artistic, political, ethical, and spiritual processes in the countries of the Global South and how those processes are intricately connected to the culture of the Western world, at times outstripping it or defining its development.

In parallel with the exhibition Garage is producing a compendium of Araeen’s texts, which will be available in Russian for the first time. Overseen by the artist, the selection spans several decades of polemic writing and includes key works, such as “Preliminary Notes for a Black Manifesto” (1975–1976) and “Ecoaesthetics: A Manifesto for the Twenty-First Century” (2008–2010).

 

BUREAU DES TRANSMISSIONS

March 8 – May 15, 2019

Bringing together Russian and international artists, Bureau des transmissions will focus on the production and circulation of knowledge in a museum setting. The experimental space of the project encourages visitors to look at educational strategies as an integral part of the life of the contemporary museum. Borrowed from the art historian Claude-Hubert Tatot, the original French title—which means “signal office”—refers to a place where important, usually military, information is communicated. Invoking telegraph, radio, fiber optics or any other means of generating vital connectivity, the title suggests that contemporary museums have to be competent in a variety of fields: as well as research centers and incubators for new art they act as platforms for educational experiments. Presented as a forum with artists’ interventions, Bureau des transmissions will function in various modes: as a continuous performance, a program of master classes, and a series of meetings with the artists and educators involved in the project

Participating artists: Olga Jitlina, Laagencia, Karoline H. Larsen, Lera Lerner, microsillons, Ekaterina Muromtseva, Kirill Savchenkov, Anna Tereshkina, Linda Vigdorčika, Asya Volodina, Arseny Zhilyaev.

 

PUBLIC PROGRAM FOR RASHEED ARAEEN. A RETROSPECTIVE

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PUBLIC PROGRAM FOR BUREAU DES TRANSMISSIONS

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GARAGE STUDIOS

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GARAGE HAS OPENED STUDIOS AND ARTIST RESIDENCIES IN MOSCOW’S VDNKH PARK

Earlier this month Garage Studios and Artist Residencies opened in a specially redesigned building in VDNKh, a city park in the northern part of Moscow. The new initiative is part of the Museum’s wider program of support for Russian artists, which also includes grants for contemporary artists (since 2012) and Garage Triennial of Russian Contemporary Art (since 2017).
 
The aim of the program is to create opportunities for Russian and international artists and curators to develop, communicate, and share skills, knowledge, and networks. It will help regional artists to integrate into the art scene in Moscow, forge international collaborations, and foster public interaction and engagement with artists as they work.
 
Garage Studios and Artist Residencies comprises eighteen separate working spaces, a shared workshop, and a painting studio, all located in a postconstructivist pavilion at VDNKh, which was built in 1939. It was originally designed as a model school building for 280 students and was later adapted to operate as a polyclinic. In 2017, the building was transferred to Garage. Architect bureau FORM remodeled the space as studios, while retaining the historical features of the building. This is the principle Garage employs in all of its reconstruction projects. The building’s new function is an ideal continuation of its original purpose as a space designed for learning in comfort.

Participating artists (in both Garage Studios and Artist Residencies): Chingiz Aidarov, Anna and Vitaly Cherepanov, Gorod Ustinov Micro-art-group, Zina Isupova, Olga Jitlina, Nastya Kuzmina, Dasha Kuznetsova, Vlad Mikhel, Roman Mokrov, Ekaterina Muromtseva, Mayana Nasybullova, Anastasia Potemkina, Sasha Saltanova, Haim Sokol, Albert Soldatov, Anton Zabrodin, Ganna Zubkova.

 

CREDITS: Photo: Ivan Erofeev, © Garage Museum of Contemporary Art; Pavel Pepperstein, The Astronaut as a Frame for the Landscape, 2018, 150 × 179.5 cm, Acrylic on canvas, Courtesy of the artist; Rasheed Araeen, Nine, 1967, Painted steel, 61 x 61 x 61 cm, Courtesy of the artist; Anna Tereshkina, Illustration for the project Nasreddin in Russia, Felt-tip pen on paper, Courtesy of the artist; Photo: Ivan Erofeev, © Garage Museum of Contemporary Art.