26 April 2015

The X Ceremony of Awarding the Winners of the INNOVATION, All-Russian Competition. Moscow. Gostiny Dvor, 2015

AN ANNIVERSARY AWARD IN THE FIELD OF CONTEMPORARY ARTS IS GRANTED IN MOSCOW The X ceremony of awarding the prize of the State Centre for Contemporary Arts Innovation took place in Gostiny Dvor. The environment in which winners were awarded became a work of art itself.

This year, the works selected by expert jury for the competition displayed a marked social slant. Last year the Innovation told us about the modern artist, his personality and how he interacts with audience, today, according to Irina Gorlova, the exhibition curator, all projects display how the artist communicates with the environment.

THE INNOVATION MAIN PRIZE

was given to Irina Korina’s Refrain installation in the Work of Visual Art nomination. The work relates to the post-perestroika period of our country. And according to Irina it has become her landmark. “Everything suddenly collapsed and turned out to be frustration and disappointment,” says the artist.

Irina Korina artist

—Where are we? We hear a familiar mesmerizing song. The song has a storm, which is artificially created, but seems like the real thing. And there is pointless, utopian hope that things can change …

On the other hand, it is known in advance, a looped melancholy effect — like the refrain, repeating each time and reassuring. Where everything new is already something old. Its like an obvious unfortunateness and holiday decorations melancholy, which, nevertheless, has always something strange and inexplicably attractive, something we will never be able to understand. There is a promise of things to come, things we know everything about in advance and things we already perceive as past. It hypnotizes me.

A large black cube in the centre of atrium reminds us about an important date — Black Square century. However, once the ceremony started, the cube faces turned to screens, while the roles of the lead and chorus were played by robots.

THE BEST CURATORIAL PROJECT 2014

award was given to the Signal exhibition presented by Petr Bely and Alexandr Terebinin. It integrated the work of more than fifty artists into the structure of a defunct design bureau. Two thousand square meters were turned into an encyclopedia of contemporary St Petersburg art.


Tamaz Manasherov and Zurab Tsereteli, the President of the Russian Academy of Arts	Tatiana Metaksa, the deputy Director of the State Museum of East	Katya Kochetkova, the Executive Director of the Competition and Alexandra Sankova, the Director of Moscow Museum of Design

THEORY, CRITIQUE, ART STUDIES NOMINATION

There are two winners in this nomination: Igor Chubarov’s Collective Sensibility: the Theory and Practice of Left Avant-Gardemonography, which was granted a special award of the Cultural and Charitable Foundation U-Art: You and Art, and scientific and research publication of Anna Romanova and Galina Metelichenko The Islands of Yury Sobolev.

Chubarov’s book is an analysis of the phenomenon of the Russian left avant-garde, represented, first of all, in works of constructivists, productivists and factographists of the 1920s. The book argues that the left avant-garde is a self-reflective social and anthropological practice, which loses nothing of its artistic qualities because of conscious attempt of artists to solve political and everyday problems of the people.

The Islands of Yury Sobolev is the outcome of a long research aimed at restoring the creative legacy of the artist. It is commonly believed that the ability to think in terms of projects and work with multiple media simultaneously is the sign of recent times and their art. However, Yury Sobolev implemented projects in which he used ideas and methods of different media of those times as early as in the 1960s. The editorial team of the book includes experts in the history of visual art, theatre, graphic, audio and visual design and film critics.


Tamaz Manasherov grants a special prize of the U-Art Foundation to Igor Chubarov	Authors of the book The Islands of Yury Sobolev, Anna Romanova and Galina Metelichenko	Marina Loshak, the Director of The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts and Elena Milovzorova, the Deputy Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation

Tamaz Manasherov founder of the U-Art: You and Art Foundation

Mikhail Mindlin with the whole Innovation team has done a great deal of work over 10 years. And I am glad that for all these years our foundation has made its contributions into the development and promotion of the award. As pointed out by Mikhail Piotrovsky, there is no separate modern art, there is just art. And our history shows that all modern things become good foundation for the future.

Today our avant-garde is a basis and greatest gift, which we show with pleasure, and which is admired by millions of people. No doubt, this heritage should be taken care of, studied and told about. That is why I think it is important to grant a special prize of the U-Art: You and Art to Igor Chubarov for his book Collective Sensibility: the Theory and Practice of Left Avant-Garde.

OUT-OF-COMPETITION WINNERS

As always, two out-of-competition laureates were known in advance. The prize for creative contribution to the modern art development was granted to Andrey Monastyrsky and the award for support of Russian modern art was given to Mikhail Piotrovsky. Last year the Hermitage headed by him became the place of Manifesta, the European Biennial of Contemporary Art. “I have been deeply moved by this award. Manifesta is really important for us,” says Mikhail Piotrovsky, “And we said what we wanted to say. Firstly, we wanted to show that there is no modern art at all, there is just art which speaks the same language. Secondly, good art can exist without any provocations and speak about arts,” noted the Hermitage Director.


Tereza Mavika, Director of the Victoria, the Art of Being Contemporary Foundation and Iveta Manasherova	Kira Sakarello and Vasily Tsereteli, Executive Director of the Moscow Museum of Contemporary Arts	Olga Sviblova, Director of the Multimedia Art Museum

IN THE NEW GENERATION NOMINATION

the Tarelkin’s Death multimedia performance by Evgenia Dolinina, Vera Koniashova, Roman Kutnov, Alexandr Leshchev, Gleb Nechaev, Marina Ragozina and Maria Sokol was a winner. The focus of work — controversial subjects of our time, especially questions about the admissibility of universal covert observance and the balance between the protection of personal data and national security.


	winners of the NEW GENERATION nomination

Mikhail Mindlin Director of the State Centre for Contemporary Arts

It is almost inconceivable that only 10 years ago we hosted the first competition. Over the years, in my opinion, the competition proved its relevance, popularity, the need for professional community.

And I hope that if we were able to live these 10 years, and the next 10 years we will be able to keep up with the times.

THE BEST REGIONAL PROJECT OF CONTEMPORARY ARTS

award was given to the travelling exhibition by Evgeny Strelkov and Andrey Suzdalev Nizhe Nizhnego: The Latest Experience in the Volga Region Ethnography that raises questions about the boundaries of fiction in the modern museum reconstruction. The work encourages the viewer to critically evaluate the museum and, more broadly, the historical and social mythology.


Artist Olga Egorova (а.k.а. heron) and Dmitri Vilensky	Alisa Prudnikova, the Director of Ekaterinburg branch of the State Centre for Contemporary Arts	Publisher and curator Nikolas Iliin and art historian Iosif Bakshtein

15 December 2015

CELLO. 3−DIMENSION

The VII Vivacello festival, organised by Boris Andrianov and the U-Art foundation, according to long standing tradition has brilliantly revealed the potential of this noble instrument to communicate in different areas of the artistic world

12 March 2015

Anniversary exhibition of Valentin Serov

An exhibition dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of Valentin Serov opened in the Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg. More than two hundred and fifty paintings, graphics and sculptures selected for the exhibit named “Serov, other than a portrait painter”, make the audience take a fresh look at the artist’s creative development. The exhibition is hosted under the

6 March 2015

Anniversary exhibition of Valentin Serov

12 January 2015

Edin Karamazov: The most beautiful music is silence and sounds of nature

Edin Karamazov, Bosnian musician, came to one of the Vivacello festival concerts. Seemingly, there is nothing unusual in this sentence – musicians of world renown tend to give concerts in various countries of the world. But as it turned out, this story is full of surprises.

27 November 2014

VI International Cello Festival

From November 11 to 24, 2014 the Sixth international festival Vivacello took place. Six concerts, six halls and evenings widely different in the mood and atmosphere. The festival gathered world-renowned musicians, among which, certainly, not everybody is a cellist.

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