Saint-Petersburg branch

NATIONAL CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY ARTS

SAINT-PETERSBURG BRANCH

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03 of June, Friday 17:00 – 02 of July, Saturday 17:00

Address: Università Ca’ Foscari
Sede di S. Sebastiano
Dorsoduro 1686, Venezia

“God Possibly Surrounds” — said the poet Alexander Vvedensky.
It was in Leningrad in 1930.
A completely different age, a different country, a different city — everything was different and had a different name.
But these words have remained because no more important words could be said.
History, one way or around, “surrounds” — the everyday career and domestic fighting against a background of the global news: vibrations of the political regimes, fluctuations of the social climate, economic booms and crises, marvels of science and fancies of art.
The poet said: “Possibly”. If there is enough levity, we assume that all that is happening has a meaning. If there is
enough courage, we do not assume. “The star of non-sense shines, It alone is bottomless” — that’s what he said.
“God” is the one who called you, and, whether you like it or not, you will have to reply: “This is I”.
So, if He — Possibly — Surrounds, then where — in reality — are we?
We are here.
This is a project about presence.
Sooner or later, the light of distant stars reaches us.
In an electronic telescope, red stars look exactly like rag rugs crocheted by our grandmas.
On school photographs, little red stars are fastened to school uniforms.
Familiar faces emerge on a film in the red light of a darkroom.
Red light from the church stained-glass windows bathes the figures of parishioners.
Our memory is the only thing that connects these things. Even though these things have no connection to us.
The distant stars had been gone long before we were born. People on the photographs no longer exist.
Masters that were building the church did not know that we would come there. It is not for us that the parishioners are praying.
But rags gather into a rug, rays into a star, shadows on a glass into faces — if we think about them and while we think about them.
We think about those who were here.
About the people who lay these walls. About the people who lay them anew.
Who were present when everything had a different name, in a different country, in a different city.
Those people are here; they are breathing in our faces. The rhythm of this breathing matches ours.
They are everywhere. Maybe they are not even people.
We think about those whom we do not know. About the Others.
It is hard for us to overcome the fear that somebody is watching us. It is hard for us to abandon the hope that somebody is actually bothered with us.
Whatever they may be — angels, ancestors, intelligent germs or extraterrestrials — we always expect guests. We prepare for the encounter. They will come and, together, we shall push PLAY.
We shall play a new game whose rules are unknown to us.
In fact, there are no rules, what rules could there possibly be when He surrounds.
We are leaving for outer space without leaving our home. Water drops fly by like planets, and each of them reflects a world. The Book soars in the sky; grass grows sky-high and, in it, we are no bigger than a grasshopper.
But we are here. We are always here.

]]> http://ncca-spb-archive.ru/en/2010/06/15/we-are-here-russian-art-project/feed/ 0 http://ncca-spb-archive.ru/en/2010/06/13/cologne-off-2011-international-videoart-festival/ http://ncca-spb-archive.ru/en/2010/06/13/cologne-off-2011-international-videoart-festival/#comments Sun, 13 Jun 2010 13:06:41 +0000 ncca http://ncca-spb-archive.ru/?p=3071 Continue reading →]]> National Center for Contemporary Arts presents:

19 of May, Thursday 19:00 – 21 of May, Saturday 22:00

CologneOFF 2011 St.Petersburg

17 of May 2011, Tuesday 19:00 – 31 of May, Tuesday 17:00

Adress: Emb. of the river of Fontanka, 34, A (a wing of the Sheremetevsky palace).

The main subject of Yuriy Shtapakov works is a memory. The Soviet past which seems to be miserable and bitter suddenly becomes sweet and familiar seen through broken mirror. Probably it sounds like nostalgia. Most likely it is his “immunity” got by meeting an aesthetic infection. And now nothing can crush him.

National Center for Contemporary Arts presents:

26 of April 2011, Tuesday 18:00 – 21:00

Lecture by an artist Alexander Lysov devoted to generative art

Adress: Emb. of the river of Fontanka, 34, A (a wing of the Sheremetevsky palace).

Generative art refers to art that has been generated, composed, or constructed in an algorithmic manner through the use of systems defined by computer software algorithms, or similar mathematical or mechanical or randomised autonomous processes.

22 of April 2011, Friday 19:00 – 21:00

Lecture by Elena Yushina

Adress: Emb. of the river of Fontanka, 34, A (a wing of the Sheremetevsky palace).

• Amsterdam and Rotterdam – centers of contemporary arts.
• Contemporary art of Amsterdam and new forms of representation.
1) Stedelijk museum (“avant-guard heritage” and temporary exhibitions)
2) Smart Project Space (“What to do?” “Museum Songspiel: The Netherlands 20XX”)
3) International curatorial programme De apple – exhibition program – exhibition of Miki Rottenberg
4) Laboratory of science art – Optofonica – art from another point of view
• Rotterdam art life and temporary exhibitions (Kunsthal Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Witte de With).
• Amsterdam and Rotterdam – twin cities. “Manifesta 1” 1996.

21 of April, Thursday 19:00 – 21:00
Address: Samara, Michurina, 90

Soviet and post-soviet domestic design in pictures by contemporary Russian artists.
Artists: Valeriy Ayzenberg, Nadezhda Anfalova, Petr Belyi, Vladimir Bystrov, Vladislav Efimov, Alexander Kitaev, Andrey Kuznetsov, Nadezhda Kuznetsova, Galina Ledentsova, Yuriy Molodkovets, Dmitriy Pilikin, Andrey Rud’ev, Vladimir Smirnov-Lilo, Sasha Terebenin, Evgeniy Umanskiy, Olga Florenskaya, Viktor Khmel and Elena Sukhoveeva.

National Center for Contemporary Arts presents:

Round-table discussion “TURN TO FORMALISM – WHY?”

16 of April, Saturday 17:00 – 20:00

Address: Galernaya, 58-60, room 412

Round-table discussion “TURN TO FORMALISM – WHY?”

The meeting initiated by curator and art critic Andrey Erofeev

Participants:

Konstantin Agunovich – art-critic

Sonya Akimova

Pavel Arsen’ev – poet, editor of Translit (literary miscellany)

Petr Belyi – artist

Andrey Erofeev – art historian, curator

Marina Koldobskaya – artist, curator, chief of Saint-Petersburg National Center for Contemporary Arts

Dmitriy Pilikin – art critic, curator

Alexander Smulyanskiy – philosopher, social critic

Alexander Skidan – poet, translator, participant of work group “What to do?”

Moderators: Stanislav Savitskii, Olga Zhitlina

7-21 April, opening at 7 p.m.

Exhibition “The Curative Power of Art”,

ArXeNeKrOHeN (St. Petersburg) and Alexander Felch (Vienna)

Adress: Emb. of the river of Fontanka, 34, A (a wing of the Sheremetevsky palace).

Health – “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (WHO)

The Curative Power of Art
A miraculous cure from „cloudiness“ of the brain with the aid of an elixir and secret combinatorial systems.

An artistic dialogue by ArXeNeKrOHeN and Alexander Felch

To evaporate clouds in the sky would be inappropriate: nature has its own flux of masses – it`s another matter to dissipate „cloudiness“ in the brain of someone suffering from the inscrutability of this illness.
Through the power of high art and a special elixir I created I managed to cure Alexander; his illness, previously incurable, was defeated by making lucid the myelin sheath of the brains and the spinal cord`s nerve fibres.
Magnetic resonance imaging „before“ and „after“ and the expert opinion of an independent specialist have confirmed this.
ArXeNeKrOHeN

There remains the question of how health can be defined.
Society defines health by certain parameters and isolates a single individual (a „sick“ person), who doesn`t fit the common understanding of health.
The sick person must be cured in order to return to the ranks of the healthy. But whom can he turn to and by what means can he be cured?
Non-traditional medicine is becoming more popular and it cures by means of faith in the irrational. In this sense the curative power of art is a panecea for the true artist.
The installation „Defining Health – and the Curative Power of Art” transforms the exhibition space of the NCCA into a curative platform for artists and society, which presents art in the form of medicine against imaginary health.

Alexander Felch

(Translation: Jason Strudler)