8TH BERLIN BIENNALE: FOR CONNECTING TO HISTORY AND FUTURE
This year, the 8th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art welcomes visitors to the different areas of the city, the cartography of which brings everyone to rich history of Berlin. After spending some time in Berlin, the curator admitted the importance of architecture for connecting the city both to its history and its future
REPLIKA: BELARUSSIAN ART-GENERATION Z
While the narrative of the contemporary Belarusian art of the 1990s and the 2000s is only recently being written (names are regained, facts and phenomena recalled, a struggle with state institutions against the monopolization of history and the spheres of influence is pursued), a number of exhibition-events have been held in Minsk. What are they like? What distinguishes them from one another and from their predecessors?
WHAT DID WE GET: THE REPRESSIVE MECHANISM OR FREEDOM?
The discussion «Sport and the Body of the City» was held on May 22, 2014 within the exhibition and discussion project «OFFSIDE». What areas can be identified in the course of the preparation for the World Hockey Championship, and what has changed in the urban landscape during this event?
«CONSTRUCTION SIDE BOARD»: SPACE TESTING
During the night between May, 7th and 8th a part of the multimedia installation «Construction Side Board» by Anton Sarokin and Alaksiej Navumčyk presented within the project «OFFSIDE» became a victim of vandalism
Belarussian Hockey Opera Buffa: Denouement Unknown
The Ice Hockey World Championship officially kicks off in Minsk on May, 9. Since May 2009, when the venue of the championship was announced, Belarus has been living through this event (with a particular intensity in the last months of preparation). What changes have occurred in the country so far? How is this event perceived by the Belarussians? What lies to the other side of the facade? And what can we expect afterwards?
THE EXPOSITION OF «OFFSIDE» ART PROJECT
Artists: Paulina Vituščanka, Siarhei Hudzilin, Michaił Hulin, Valancina Kisialova, Alaksiej Łunioŭ , Alaksiej Navumčyk, Anton Sarokin, Antanina Słabodčykava, Maxim Tyminko, Jura Shust and art-group Bouillon (Georgia).
The curators’ group: Таnia Arcimovič, Alaksiej Barysionak, Valancina Kisialova, Inha Lindarenka.
MAY 1-27, 2014 — ART PROJECT «OFFSIDE»
Which place does sport take in the cultural space of Belarus — in its artistic, ideological and urban dimensions? How does sport «mega-events» transform the city’s economy, its infrastructure and the daily practices of its citizens? Is sport a form of exploitation and discipline of the body? Can energy of collective experience be used beyond ideological goals?
PROCRUSTEAN BED OF BELARUSIAN ART: 10 CENTURIES?
The exhibition «Ten Centuries of in Belarus Art », which opened at the National Art Museum in March, was immediately named as «unique» by critics, visitors and mass media. Nevertheless, despite all the advantages, the importance of such a project in the country’s culture and its historical role, what can such a form of presentation warn us about? What things already dealing with our present days does it speak about? What is it that we are losing now and in what way are we becoming witnesses of the history formation?
THE SPACE OF ONE’S PRIVATE FOREST
In March 2014 the project «Angulum Ligno» was exhibited in the Contemporary Art Gallery «Ў». The installation bearing the same name was created by the artist Alena Haiduk in the framework of the gallery’s program «START» aimed at supporting the creative youth
Michail Hulin: A Right not to live in underground
About difficulty to speak out publicly in Belarus, about his personal experience, and that is why he is not engaged in political art, says Belarusian artist Michaił Hulin
To Ruin The Schizophrenic Reality
The discussion «Independent Communities in Belarus: Solidarity and Action» took place on March, 11 in Gallery «Ў» (Minsk). The organizers are media-project «pARTisan» and internet-magazine «New Europe». The participants are historian Alaksei Brataćkin, artist Michaił Hulin, artist and writer Artur Klinaŭ, human rights activist Alena Tankaćova, philosopher Volha Śparaha. The moderator of the discussion is Taciana Arcimović.
PRESENT CONTINUOUS, or PHOTOGRAPHY in ‘PROCESS’
Having learnt that a new photo-exhibition at ‘CECH’ art-space is named ‘Process’, the first thing that comes to one’s mind is certainly Franz Kafka. The story which starts with the absurd of nothing and ends up with the death of nothing, despair and foolishness of bureaucratic pitfalls as well as the painful omnipresence of Big Brother seem to be more than relevant
Uladzimir Parfianok: Life with Photography
There are more than 20 project series in the portfolio of famous Belarusian photographer Uladzimir Parfianok — there has been a photo a day. Piles of these photos have actually formed a diary of the epoch, or the edge of epochs, the new reality where only author’s lifestyle remains unchanged. This lifestyle is photography.
Aleś Puškin. The Lionhearted
Who is Aleś Puškin, famous Belarusian artist, which is known by his actions against modern Belarusian State (especially “A Gift to President” in 1999). He is a realist, perpetual nationalist, troublemaker or all these mixed together? This is the question Juraś Barysievič provides an answer to in the artist’s profile presented under the title The Lionhearted
Aleksander Komarov: the soul of work weighing 35 grams
Aleksander Komarov is a Belarusian artist, who now lives in Berlin. He works with various forms of media, primarily, with video. He took part in numerous international projects in Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Japan, the Czech Republic, Turkey and other countries. In 2012, within the framework of the Belarusian part of the project “Europe (to the power of) n” at Lena Prenz’s curators’ exhibition “To West of the East” held at Y Gallery, his two films Palipaducienne and Language Lessons were shown
VOID: DANCE OF UNBEARABLE BEUTY
On February 13, 2013, within the First Belarusian Forum of Physical and Dance Theaters ‘PlaStforma-Minsk-2013’ Irina Anufrieva (Sweden/Belarus) presented dance performance ‘VOID’ (dance and choreography — Irina Anufrieva, music — Diamanda Galás, costume and light — Joanna Bodzek).
Archeology of collective memory
Igor Tishyn is one of the most significant contemporary Belarusian artists. He has been living and working in Belgium for more than 10 years. However, all material, images, scenes and objects for his paintings, installations and photographs remain Belarusian by nature. They are directly related to the post-Soviet realism of 1990s, and to the political and historical aspects of modern time. Not surprisingly that in Belarus Igor Tishyn is to some extent mythologized. He is called “grandfather of the partisan movement”…
Moskaleva and Shachlevich. Dialogues – 2
Photo artists Galina Moskoleva and Vladimir Shachlevich are at the origins of the modern Belarusian photography. In the mid-1980s, they got to the studio of Valera Lobko, though each in their own way. Later on, the phenomenon of this studio was marked as Minsk School of Photography. Their lives have come different ways. Galina and Vladimir live and work in Moscow, but occasionally they visit Minsk and remind their colleagues of those recent and at the same time already distant times.
The political like the personal: Belarusian art ten years later
In 2002, in the first issue of pARTisan magazine an art critic Volha Kapenkina was speculating about the state of contemporary Belarusian art. In particular, she remarked that the Belarusian artist “doesn’t express any clear statements, he neither states nor denies anything”. After 10 years Volha Śparaha give her pointview on the situation in Belarusian contemporary art. Is it change?
Sergey Shabohin: It is interesting to watch a viewer watching me
Interview with Siarhiej Śabochin (was made in spring 2011), Belarusain artist, curator of Y Gallery, founder and editor-in-chief of the Portal of contemporary Belarusian art Art Aktivist. Born in Navapołack, Belarus. Since 1999 lives and works in Minsk. Studied at the Belarusian State Academy of Arts (Minsk). There were the ehxebitions in Belarus, Poland, Germany, USA, Sweden and other.