Exhibitions in GARAGE: May 2018

Viacheslav Koleichuk and Mir group, Atom (1967), kinetic installation, Kurchatov Square, Moscow, Photo: Viacheslav Koleichuk Archive

Dear Friends,

It was with both sadness and pleasure that Garage held a gathering earlier this month with hundreds of spectators, friends, and relatives of artist Viacheslav Koleichuk to celebrate the launch of his thirteen-meter high kinetic sculpture Atom 1968/2018 and the artist’s life. A key figure in Russian kinetic art, Koleichuk sadly passed away just weeks before he could witness the resurrection of his monumental artwork as part of the Garage Square Commission series.

This weekend marks the third edition of Garage Art Book Fair, which will bring together more than fifty Russian and foreign publishers specializing in books on art and culture, as well as a series of lectures and discussions with art historian Bruce Altshuler, art critic Françoise Barb-Galfor, illustrator and comic book author Brecht Evens, art critic Martin Gayford, artist Georgy Kizevalter, and others.

Also, on May 23 Garage is kicking off the third season of Mosaic Music with a concert by London-based singer, songwriter and producer Sampha. Join us on Apple Music and download our recent playlist that we will keep updating with the new shows coming up.

In other news, late last month we announced the winners of the Archive Summer research grant program. Through September 2 we will host six curators and researchers to work at Garage Archive for one month each. For the full list of the grantees and details about the program, please follow this link.

And lastly, don’t forget to mark your calendars for Garage 10th birthday celebrations this June! To mark the occasion Garage will open six new exhibitions on June 10, including a solo show by Juergen Teller, a project curated by Council called Infinite Ear, and three multi-disciplinary experimental projects re-envisaging the Museum’s past and potential futures: Did You Have a Good Time? Vremena Goda Café since 1968, Dear Visitors..., and IAM. The latter is developed in two episodes, one of which features a new, ambitious installation by Ryoji Ikeda—code-verse—developed in collaboration with Centre Pompidou in Paris. Garage Teens Team will also present their own “birthday gift”—an interactive installation called Handmade Future—which was created together with Garage designers.

All the best,

Kate Fowle
Garage Chief Curator

GARAGE EXHIBITIONS

Viacheslav Koleichuk’s kinetic installation Atom 1967/2018 at Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, 2018, Photo: Ivan Erofeev, © Garage Museum of Contemporary Art

VIACHESLAV KOLEICHUK’S ATOM 1967/2018 ON VIEW THROUGH AUGUST 26

Earlier this month Garage launched its new Square Commission—Viacheslav Koleichuk’s Atom 1967/2018—a thirteen-meter-high kinetic work that will be on view throughout the summer until August 26. Viacheslav Koleichuk (1941–2018) was an artist, architect, designer, and art theorist. He had been drawn to artistic and technological innovations since his student years at the Moscow Architectural Institute where he experimented with self-tensioned structures and was eventually granted a patent as early as 1966, the year of his graduation. He constructed the outdoor kinetic object Atom in 1967. The then twenty-six-year-old Koleichuk, for whom the project was a “total experiment”, aspired to “discover that, which did not exist before him”, constructing a monumental sculpture at the forefront of the new discoveries in art, science, and architecture at that time.

The original Atom was commissioned by the Kurchatov Institute of Nuclear Energy and built for the fiftieth anniversary of the October Revolution. The key and most complex element was a large moving sphere made of hundreds of metal tubes held together by the tensions of its constituent parts and set in motion by the wind. Today Atom has been built with upgraded building techniques yet its heart, the moving sphere, was made by the artist himself in collaboration with his son Dmitry.

The work was originally also accompanied by a now lost score composed by Leon Theremin whose cosmic electronic music played in sync with light projections. The version of the artwork at Garage Square uses a new music composition written by young and talented composer Nikolay Khrust. The score was recorded on Theremin Vox and ovaloid, one of the many musical instruments Koleichuk invented during his lifetime.

The project is organized by Snejana Krasteva, Garage Curator.

THE LAST DAYS OF ANDRO WEKUA’S DOLPHIN IN THE FOUNTAIN EXHIBITION

Also, do not miss the last three days of Andro Wekua's first solo exhibition in Russia that reveals the artist’s kaleidoscopic mind in an installation created specifically for the galleries that it inhabits. Dolphin in the Fountain resembles a frozen reality—like a children’s game of statues—where seemingly unrelated protagonists may have been transported to the installation from a computer game, or some kind of digital reality through a space-time anomaly. This is an art that resists any rational analysis or interpretation, while taking us into a landscape where memories, impressions, and emotions have the potential to create a new, autonomous life.

The project is organized by Katya Inozemtseva, Garage Senior Curator.

GARAGE EDUCATION

© Garage Museum of Contemporary Art;

RESULTS ANNOUNCED FOR A (MIS)READER'S GUIDE TO LISTENING PROJECT’S OPEN CALL

Garage has selected twenty mediators for A (Mis)reader's Guide to Listening project within the Infinite Ear summer exhibition.

The main criteria were ability and willingness to communicate with the audience and interest in sonic cultures. During the open call Garage received more than 150 applications from people with different backgrounds including deaf and hard of hearing individuals, performers, dancers, yoga instructors, sound artists, and sign language interpreters.

To prepare for three-month work on the project, the mediators will take part in a two-week workshop conducted by artists Valentina Desideri, Myriam Lefkowitz, and Lendl Barcelos. During the workshop the artists will create a unique way of communication with visitors for each mediator. The mediators’ work on the project itself will last for the whole exhibition with face-to-face and group mediation formats of communication.

For more information on the open call and Infinite Ear, please visit our website.

GARAGE PUBLISHING

Photo: Fedor Kandinsky, © Garage Museum of Contemporary Art

THE THIRD GARAGE ART BOOK FAIR

This year, GARAGE ART BOOK FAIR takes place over the course of three days, starting with a professional day, with various public events held by professionals from the publishing industry. Experiences will be shared by BOMBORA marketing director Lyudmila Maksalieva, and co-owner of the comic book store Chook&Geek, Vasily Koretsky. A discussion on book distribution in Russia will gather together representatives of the Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communications, regional book networks of Voronezh, Irkutsk, Kazan, and Tyumen, and the Association of Book Distributors of Independent States.

On Saturday, May 19, visitors are invited to join a public talk with Galina Balashova, an architect from the Soviet cosmic program and the first interior designer of Salyut and Mir space stations, and Soyuz Lunar Orbital Craft. It will be followed by lectures by Bruce Altshuler, an American art theorist who will present his new book The Avant-Garde in Exhibition, and Brecht Evens, a Flemish illustrator and comic book author.

On Sunday, May 20, publisher Art-Volkhonka will open the public program with the presentation of a new book about the graphic style of the epoch of 1956–1969. Also in the program are planned discussions with the editor-in-chief of the Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie (New Literary Observer) Irina Prokhorova, and artists Georgy Kizevalter and art-critic Evgeniya Kikodze about the art of the 1980s; a conversation about the practices of reading in Soviet times with literary critic Anna Narinskaya, and literary historian, journalist Gleb Morev with the participation of the Russian Book Pavilion.

A public talk with Martin Gayford, British art critic and co-author of David Hockney’s book A History of Pictures, published by Garage in 2017 together with Ad Marginem Press, will wrap up this year’s book fair on Sunday evening.

Throughout the weekend a special program for children and teenagers will be available.

For a full schedule of events and registration as well as other details on the book fair, please visit our website.

GARAGE ARCHIVE AND LIBRARY

© Garage Museum of Contemporary Art

BOOKS ON CURATING: CONTEXTS AND CONTEMPLATIONS. A SERIES OF SEMINARS LED BY MARIA KALININA

This week Garage Library launched a series of seminars on books on curating led by independent curator and researcher Maria Kalinina. Participants are invited to read the main publications on the history and philosophy of curating (published as a part of the GARAGE PRO series and available for reading at Garage Library) to trace the history of post-war art in the light of new exhibition practices. Together with the course leader the group will then explore the essence of curatorial practices alongside its socio-cultural conditions and learn how big exhibitions shaped the history of international contemporary art.

Since 2015, new editions of the GARAGE PRO series, released as part of the collaborative publishing program between Garage and Ad Marginem Press, have introduced texts by key theorists and professions in the fields of curation and cultural production, such as Viktor Misiano, Terry Smith, Pascal Gielen, Brian O’Doherty, Nina Simon, and others.

For a full schedule of the seminars and recommended reading for each session, please visit our website.