We are showcasing Russian and international performance artists in Moscow’s
first International Performance Art Festival, part of the traveling exhibition
100 Years of Performance that is curated by Klaus Biesenbach, Director of MoMA
PS1 and a Chief Curator at Large at The Museum of Modern Art, and RoseLee
Goldberg, Director and Curator of Performa in New York. The Performance
Festival - will contextualise the exhibition’s archival and documentary
materials by creating an exciting temporary space for live performance and
offering Garage visitors the chance to watch, experience and interact with some
of the most inspiring performance artists from around the world as they create
never-seen-before works in Moscow.
The festival will showcase the extraordinary diversity of performance art, as
over 10 artists will present work that spans an enormous variety of working
practices which challenge the Garage audience to engage in different ways. The
festival opens with Moscow based artist Liza Morozova performing An Attempt to
Escape Glamour, in which visitors will be genuinely welcomed to Garage’s space
by predictably beautiful Russian models with a warmhearted embrace.
New York based artists Kalup Linzy, Rashaad Newsome, Ryan McNamara and
Aki Sasamoto will also perform during the festival. Linzy will take on
his alter-ego Taiwan to play Sweet, Sampled and LeftOva with a live jazz band,
while Newsome will combine music and live video-mixing in his Shade
Compositions, in which female performers enact musical gestures as the artist
conducts and mixes the sound with a hacked Nintendo® Wii™ game controller.
McNamara will perform Hallways where he draws on the history of contemporary
performance artists such as Bruce Nauman, Marina Abramović, and Graciela
Carnevale. And Aki Sasamoto’s Beauty Line will explore the flow of blood, sweat
and alcohol through a performance of routines.
Acclaimed Russian artists Elena Kovylina, German Vinogradov, Andrei
Kuzkin, Fyodor Pavlov-Andreevich, The MishMash Group and The Blue
Noses will be inviting visitors to interact with their own
performances. Elena Kovylina will stage a beautiful tea party Would you like a
cup of coffee? in which the artist will invite visitors to join her, decorating
tarts and pastries before setting the table cloth a blaze. The Blue Noses
reassess the history of performance with 100 Years of Performance in 15
minutes. Andrei Kuzkin will take on the role of a computer character as he
wears digital glasses that allow visitors to remote control operate his
movements in his performance You are alive – I am alive. Fyodor
Pavlov-Andreevich will be moving around the space of the Garage, interacting
with visitors and asking them questions whilst playing his simple game, Egobox.
And the MishMash Group will assemble a sculpture collection by molding visitors
signed prayers and wishes into a gigantic panel in their Volume of Desires and
Various Types of Voids.
Garage has also invited all the performing artists within the festival to give
talks about their work to spark discussion about performance art today. The
series of talks will bring a new relevance and perspective to the rich heritage
of this genre which is explored within 100 Years of Performance exhibition. The
entire festival of both talks and performances are very much part of the
exhibition. As 100 Years is not a static or closed archive; it evolves and
expands in new directions each time it is presented in a different space and a
new location. The curators have encouraged Garage visitors to contribute
memories, thoughts and performance material of their own which will become part
of this important overview as it travels all over the world. As a result, the
new Moscow additions will include established Russian artists Oleg Kulik; The
Radek Group; The Blue Noses and Elena Kovylina all of whom are displayed within
the exhibition to mark the completion of Version #3, Moscow, June 20
FESTIVAL PROGRAM
4 SEPTEMBER
19.00 – Performance: An attempt to Overcome Glamour by Elizaveta
Morozova
ELIZAVETA MOROZOVA
Elizaveta Morozova emphasizes social experimentations. For this she uses her
own body to research and communicate her messages. In the work An Attempt to
Overcome Glamour Morozova will examine the public’s receptiveness to various
levels of communication. For this particular performance, the artist steps away
from her usual self and body and encourages models to warmheartedly greet and
embrace the viewers.
5 SEPTEMBER
19.00 – Lecture by Yulia Aksenova and Pakhom
20.00 – Performance: You are alive – I am alive, by Andrey
Kuzkin
ANDREY KUZKIN
This moment of interaction with the viewers is also of high importance in the
work of the young artist Andrey Kuzkin. His performance You are alive – I am
alive focuses on the communication process between the audience and the artist.
For this sole purpose, he interacts with people via a virtual helmet that he
wears throughout the whole piece. This performance can be interpreted as a
social critique – Kuzkin is there to please the audience, while the main
accomplishment for the artist is to experience the personal interconnection
with the viewer and with himself. The lack of such a connection would thus
signify the inexistence of art for the artist.
6 SEPTEMBER
19.00 – Lecture by Andrey Kuzkin
20.00 – Performance: Sweet, Sampled and LeftOva by Kalup Linzy
KALUP LINZY
New York-based Kalup Linzy works with video and performance art to bring to
life a cast of characters of his own invention. At Garage, he will take to the
stage as “Taiwan” to perform with his live jazz band The Sweet, Sampled, and
LeftOva. Making use of popular visual forms, such as music videos and concerts,
Linzy simultaneously appropriates and elevates the visual style of our
contemporary notion of performance, and the narratives and discourses it can
generate.
7 SEPTEMBER
19.00 – Lecture by Kalup Linzy
20.30 – Performance: Shade compositions by Rashaad Newsome
RASHAAD NEWSOME
Rashaad Newsome takes advantage of the common practice of sampling, ubiquitous
in the visual language of media, pop culture, and the internet, to create works
of art that are highly complex and sophisticated. In Shade Compositions, which
will be performed at Garage, Newsome uses a hacked Nintendo® Wii™ controller to
sample and mix sounds and video footage of a group of female performers, all in
real time.
8 SEPTEMBER
19.00 – Lecture by Rashaad Newsome
20.30 – Performance: Would you like a cup of coffee? Or burn the world of
bourgeois! by Elena Kovylina
ELENA KOVYLINA
Elena Kovylina and her performances are known for their irreconcilable
radicalism. Her performance Would you like a cup of coffee? Or burn down the
world of the bourgeois! brings together provocative political statements with
radical artistic gesticulation. Kovylina invites viewers to join her at a
refined tea party. After a few minutes of enjoying tea with the artist at her
table, she unexpectedly sets the tablecloth on fire.
9 SEPTEMBER
19.00 – Lecture by Alexandra Obukhova
20.30 – Performance: EGOBOX, by Fyodor Pavlov-Andreevich
FYODOR PAVLOV-ANDREEVICH
The basis of Fyodor Pavlov-Andreevich’s work lies within the moment of direct
interaction with the viewer. The emphasis falls on the artist’s sincere and
vulnerable state in which he appears before the audience as well as his
narcissistic desire to bare his subjectivity in front of them. In his
performance Egobox, the artist will be locked in a plywood cube, with only his
head sticking out of the top. Throughout the performance he will be speaking to
the viewers aand asking them to do something with the cube. Therefore, some
actions may result in something unexpected and dangerous.
10 of SEPTEMBER
19.00 – Lecture by Alexandra Obukhova
20.30 – Performance: Beauty Line, by Aki Sasamoto.
AKI SASAMOTO
Aki Sasamoto examines ritual and routine in Beauty Line, a performance that
centers around the body, and specifically the inter-dependent movement and flow
of blood, water, and alcohol.
11 SEPTEMBER
19.00 – Lecture by Aki Sasamoto.
20.30 – Performance: Volume of Desires or Various Types of Voids, by
MishMash.
MISHMASH
The challenges faced by artists performing a work in collaboration with the
audience are fulfilled by MishMash with their performance Volume of Desires or
Various Types of Voids. Here the artists invite the viewers to create their own
sculptures by casting their hands in a symbolic pose of praying, capturing the
notion of emptiness inside. By the end of the performance, all casts will be
assimilated into a large panel. As a result, all spectators will turn into
artists, and their aspirations and most precious wishes will be
materialized.
12 SEPTEMBER
19.00 – Lecture by MishMash.
20.30 – Performance: World of Spirits, Lecture on spirituality in live pictures
(Firegraph), by German Vinogradov.
GERMAN VINOGRADOV
German Vinogradov – one of the foremost acclaimed performers at the festival –
gained recognition in the 1980s with his mystifying performances Bicaphonias,
which encompass artistic actions together with playing a musical instrument.
His project for the festival World of Spirits, Lecture on spirituality in live
pictures (Firegraph) continues the concept of a synergy of different art types
brought together. The performance will incorporate poetry reading, painting,
music and remarkable stunts with fire.
13 SEPTEMBER
19.00 – Lecture by Ryan McNamara.
20.30 – Performance: 100 years of performance in 15 minutes by Blue Noses
group.
BLUE NOSES GROUP
Among other classics of the genre is the Blue Noses Group. The members play
with the notion of humor in their performances, while capturing themselves on
film or through photography. Their project 100 years of performance in 15
minutes will be staged as a lecture that will ironically exemplify the history
of performance art, while demonstrating the process through live acts and the
help of assistants and audience members.
14 SEPTEMBER
19.00 – Lecture by German Vinogradov.
20.30 – Performance: Hallways by Ryan McNamara.
RYAN MCNAMARA
Ryan McNamara uses video and performance to make work that centers around the
body and the role it plays in establishing identity. His highly physical works
are simultaneously playful and contemplative, informed by a comedic sensibility
and driven by a highly thoughtful inquiry of the body's limitations and
vulnerabilities. At the Garage, his Hallways draw upon examples of contemporary
performance to inform the artist's physical investigations of the medium of
performance.
Kalup Linzy is a New York based artist who works in video and
performance art. He received his MFA from the University of South Florida,
Tampa in 2003 having also attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and
Sculpture, Maine in 20002. In his video art pieces, Linzy often performs in the
guises of characters he has created whilst also performing these characters on
stage as well. He has exhibited widely; most recently with solo exhibitions at
the Berkeley Art Museum (2010); the Breeder, Athens (2009); Parisian Laundry,
Montréal (2009). Linzy’s work is included in the public collections of the
MOMA, Studio Museum, Harlem and Whitney Museum of American Art.
Rashaad Newsome's works dismantles power structures one shiny
block at a time. Using the equalizing force of sampling, he crafts compositions
that frequently surprise in their associative potential and walk the tightrope
between identity politics and abstraction. Rashaad Newsome was born in New
Orleans, Louisiana where he received a B.A. in Art History at Tulane University
before studying Film at Film Video Arts in New York City. Newsome has exhibited
nationally and internationally at such creditable institutions and Galleries
as: The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; PS1MoMA, New York, NY;
Glassbox Gallery, Paris, France and ar/ge Kunst Galerie Museum, Bolzano, Italy.
Recent awards include: 2010 The Urban Artist Initiative individual Artist
Grant, UAI, New York, NY; 2009 Rema Hort Mann Foundation, Visual Arts Grant,
New York, NY and 2009 BAC Community Arts Regrant, New York, NY.
Tania Bruguera
20.30, 9 September, Trust Workshop
Tania Bruguera is one of the leading political and performance
artist of her generation. Bruguera trained at the Instituto Superior de Arte in
Havana and at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is currently
working and living between the two cities. Bruguera uses the terms ARTE DE
CONDUCTA (conduct/ behavior art) and ARTE UTIL (useful art) to define her
practice. As the founder and director of Arte de Conducta, Bruguera created the
first performance studies program in Latin America, hosted by the Instituto
Superior de Arte and made its debut during the latter part of 2002. Having
exhibited widely in international institutions and museums, Bruguera has also
exhibited in several biennales such as Venice, Johannesburg, Sao Paolo,
Shangai, Havana and Site Santa Fe. In 1998 she was selected as a Guggenheim
fellow as well as receiving the Prince Claus Award in 2000.
Aki Sasamoto
20.30, 10 September, Beauty Line
19.00, 11 September, talk
Aki Sasamoto is a New York-based, Japanese artist who works in
performance, sculpture and dance. Sasamoto studied at Columbia University,
School of Arts, receiving her MFA in 2007. Sasamoto has exhibited and performed
internationally, most recently at the Yokohama Triennale, Japan (2008);
Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin (2008); Perfoma in collaboration with Momus, New
York (2009); Whitney Biennale, New York (2010). She is also co-director of
Culture Push Inc.
Ryan McNamara is a video and performance artist who lives and works in New
York. Recent performances and exhibitions in 2010 include The Kitchen, New
York; Liste Art Fair, Basel; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; MoMA
PS1, New York; Galeria Filomena Soares, Lisbon; and Elizabeth Dee, New York.
McNamara’s work is represented in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art,
New York.
Liza Morozova
19.00, 4 September, An Attempt to Escape Glamour
Liza Morozova is a performance artist based in Moscow. She studied at the
International School of the Theatre of Synthesis and Animation INTERSTUDIO,
workshop of Paratheatrical Forms, a branch of the Saint-Peterburgian State
Academy of Theatrical Arts between 1994-2000 and was a student of the course
“New Art Strategies” at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Soros Foundation,
Moscow. She had taken part in more than 130 exhibitions in 17 countries and is
the creator of 50 performances. Her most recent performances include the South
Russian Biennale of Contemporary Art, Rostov on Don (2010); Yakut Biennale of
Contemporary Art, National Art Museum, Yakutsk (2010); IX Biennale of
contemporary art “Dialogues,” Small Manege, St Petersburg (2009). She has also
participated in the Moscow Biennale in 2009, 2007 and 2005 as well as
exhibiting at the 51st Venice Biennale in 2005 with ESCAPE program.
Andrey Kuzkin
20.30, 5 September, You are alive – I am alive
19.00, 6 September, talk/screening
Andrey Kuzkin is a multidisciplinary artist working on objects, installation
and performances and lives and works in Moscow. In 1996, Kuzkin entered the
Graphic department at the Moscow Poligraphic Institute, graduating in 2001 with
an MFA. In 2006, Kuzkin became a member of the Moscow Union of Artists within
the Industrial Graphics section. Having exhibited widely, Kuzkin’s most recent
projects include Galata Perform, Istanbul (2009); Krasnoyarsk Museum Biennale
(2009); Shiryaebo Biennale (2009); Open Gallery, Moscow (2009).
Fyodor Pavlov-Andreevich is a performance artist, writer, curator, actor,
theater director and filmmaker who lives between Moscow, London and Sao Paulo.
After graduating in 1995 from the Aarhus High School of Journalism,
Pavlov-Andreevich attended the Moscow State University where he graduated in
2000 with a Master of Arts. He has most recently exhibited at Deitch Projects,
New York (2009); Paradise Row Gallery, London (2009); Galerie Stanislas
Bourgain, Paris (2008); Royal Academy of Arts, London (2008); Diehl Gallery
One, Moscow (2008).
The Blue Noses Group
20.30, 13 September, 100 Years of Performance in 15
minutes
The Blue Noses Group was founded in 1999 and consists of the Viacheslav Mizin
(born 1962) and Alexander Shaburov (born 1965). Mizin graduated from
Novosibirsk Architectural Institute in 1984 and now lives and works in
Novosibirsk and Ekaterinburg. Shaburov attended the Sverdlovsk College of Arts
and graduated in 1985 but now lives and works between Ekaterinburg and Moscow.
Shaburov has also been a member of the Artist’s Union of the Russian Federation
since 1993 and in 1998 received a grant from the Soros Foundation for denture
treatment as an artistic action. The Group has exhibited widely in Moscow and
internationally both in solo and group exhibitions, recently at the Chelsea Art
Museum, New York (2008); Diehl Projects, Berlin (2007); Galeria Brito Cimino,
San Paulo (2006); M. Guelman Gallery, Moscow (2007/2006). The Group also
exhibited at both the 1st and 2nd Moscow Biennials as well as the 51st Venice
Biennale in 2005.
MishMash Group
19.00-22.30, 11 September, Volume of Desires and Various Types of Voids
19.00, 12 September, talk/screening
The MishMash group comprises of Misha Leykin (born 1968) and Masha Sumnina
(born 1977). Leykin graduated from the Moscow Architectural Institute in 1994
and Sumnina attended the Moscow Academy of Printing and graduated in 2001. Both
now live and work in Moscow. The Group has exhibited both in Russia and
internationally, most recently at ArtPlay, Moscow (2010); NCCA, Moscow and Lyon
(2010); Open Gallery, Moscow (2010).
Vinogradov is a mysterial artist and musician, working as a painter, graphic
artist, photographer, creator of objects, sound sculptor, video artist and
poet. Having graduated from Architecture Department of the Moscow
Land-Surveying College in 1983, Vinogradov turned to painting and drawing,
becoming a member of the Kindergarten group between 1984-1986 and the Hermitage
Amateur Society for Art in 1987. During the late 1980s and 1990s, Vinogradov
set up many artistic groups including “Wine and Bread” (1989), “KWAKUUM” (1994)
and “Wine and Soot” (1995). Since 2000, Vinogradov has founded the All-Russian
movement “PEN”, become a member of the poetic group “DOOS” (2004), founded the
award in the name of A.S. Kruchyonyh “Crystal” for achievements in the field of
culture and as well as forming the group “Vinogradov and Alexey” with the
guitarist A. Bortnichuk. Recent exhibitions have included the Museum of
Political Repressions, “Perm-36”, Perm region (2007, 2006) and Elena
Vrublevskaya gallery, Moscow (2006). Vinogradov is also represented in many
collections including State Tretiakov gallery, Moscow, Moscow Museum of
Contemporary Art, State Center of Contemporary Art, Moscow and State Museum of
Toys, St Petersburg.
Elena Kovilina
20.30, 8 September, Would you like a cup of coffee? Or Burn Down the World of
Bourgeois!
Elena Kovilina is a Moscow native artist working in performance, film and
installation art. She studied at the Centre of Contemporary Art, Moscow between
1988-1999 and UdK Berlin between 2001-2003. Kovilina has exhibited widely both
in Moscow and internationally. Recent exhibitions include Dispari&Dispari
project, Reggio Emilia (2009); Ludwig Museum for Contemporary Art, Budapest
(2009); Transmediale Festival, Berlin (2009). Kovilina also took part in the
3rd Moscow Biennale in 2009 in a group exhibition ‘Ultra-New Materiality’ at
the Moscow Museum of Modern Art.
Curator Biographies
Klaus Biesenbach is Director of MoMA PS1 and a Chief Curator
at Large at The Museum of Modern Art. Biesenbach was appointed Curator in
MoMA's Department of Film and Media in 2004 and became Chief Curatorial Advisor
at MoMA PS1. He was named Chief Curator of MoMA's newly formed Department of
Media in 2006, which was broadened to the Department of Media and Performance
Art in 2009. As Chief Curator of the department, Biesenbach led a range of
pioneering initiatives, including the launch of a new performance art
exhibition series; an ongoing series of workshops for artists and curators,
important acquisitions of media and performance art; and the museum's
presentation in 2010 of a major retrospective of the work of the performance
artist Marina Abramović. Among the recent exhibitions Biesenbach has organized
internationally are Performance 1: Tehching Hsieh (2009); Pipilotti Rist: Pour
Your Body Out (7354 Cubic Meters) (2008); Take your time: Olafur Eliasson
(2008, with Roxana Marcoci, Curator, Department of Photography), Doug Aitken:
sleepwalkers (2007, co-commissioned with Creative Time), Regarding Terror: The
Red Army Faction Exhibition (Berlin and Graz, 2005); The Shanghai Biennale
(2002); Venice Biennale (1995); Hybrid Workspace at Documenta X (Kassel, 1997);
and 37 Rooms (Berlin, 1992).
Biesenbach founded Kunst-Werke (KW) Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin in
1991, as well as the Berlin Biennale in 1996, and remains Founding Director of
both entities.
RoseLee Goldberg is an art historian, author, critic, and
curator who pioneered the study of performance art with her seminal book,
Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present, first published in 1979. A
graduate of the Courtauld Institute of Art (London University), she was
previously director of the Royal College of Art Gallery in London and curator
at The Kitchen in New York. In 1990 she organized Six Evenings of Performance
as part of the acclaimed exhibition High and Low: Modern Art and Popular
Culture at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Also the author of the books
Performance: Live Art Since 1960 and Laurie Anderson, she is a frequent
contributor to Artforum and other magazines.
In 2001 Goldberg originated and produced Logic of the Birds, a full length
multimedia production by Iranian-born artist Shirin Neshat in collaboration
with singer Sussan Deyhim. Ms. Goldberg has lectured extensively at The
Architectural Association in London, the California Institute of the Arts,
Yale, Columbia, Princeton and the Tate Modern, and has taught at New York
University since 1987. She was recently named a Chevalier of the Order of Arts
and Letters by the French Minister of Culture and Communication.
In 2004, Ms. Goldberg founded Performa, a non-profit multidisciplinary arts
organization dedicated to exploring the critical role of live performance in
the history of twentieth century art and to encouraging new directions in
performance for the twenty-first century. Performa launched New York’s first
performance biennial, Performa 05, in 2005 to great success, followed by the
equally acclaimed Performa 07 in 2007 and Performa 09 in 2009.
More information is available at
www.performa-arts.org.
Yulia Aksenova is the co-curator of the selection of Russian
performance artists. Yulia Aksenova read History of Art and Curating
Contemporary Art at the Russian State University of the Humanities (1998-2002)
and attended the Programme of New Art Strategy for Artists and Art Critics at
the Soros Center of Contemporary Art (2000-2002). Later she also attended the
International Curatorial Training Program de Apple in Amsterdam. She has held
curatorial positions at the State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow Center of Art and
the Garage. Yulia has curated and co-curated over 12 exhibitions over the last
5 years, they have included Russian Pop-art (2005) and Sots-Art. Political art
in Russia at the Moscow State Tretyakov Gallery (2007); numerous exhibitions at
the Moscow Center of Art; Red October Gallery; Masters Hamfrey`s Clock, De
Appel, Amsterdam (2008). She has also written for influential exhibition
publications.
100 Years of Performance is made possible by the Annual Exhibition Fund of
P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center with generous support from Julia Stoschek is
being presented with P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, an affiliate of New York’s
MoMA-Museum of Modern Art, and Performa (New York). Version #1 opened in
Düsseldorf, Version #2 opened in New York in 2009.
