The Art Without Death: Russian Cosmism group exhibition is on at Berlin’sHaus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), opening September 1 and running to October 3.
The show brings together both Russian avant-garde work, curated by Boris Groys and drawn from the George Costakis collection, and contemporary work, including films by Anton Vidokle and Arseny Zhilyaev‘s installation reflecting “on the philosophical, scientific and artistic concepts of Russian Cosmism.”
Exploring the concept of Russian Cosmism and its dedication to”material immortality and resurrection,” as well as travel to outer space, there will also be a two-day conference looking at the intersection of science, technology and art. The event is part of 100 Years of Now, which is a four year program “undertaking an analysis of the present time by linking back to historical utopias.”
The Liverpool Biennial 2016 is on across venues in the UK city, opening July 9 and running to October 16.
Unlike many other biennials and larger art fairs, this one is arranged around a coherent narrative with much specificity involved. The viewer will be taken on a series of voyages through time and space, drawing on Liverpool’s past, present and future in six ‘episodes’: Ancient Greece, Chinatown, Children’s Episode, Software, Monuments from the Future and Flashback, all installed in public spaces, unused buildings and galleries across the city.
Also unique to the biennial is that many of the 44 artists have made work for more than one episode. Some are repeated across different episodes, some venues host more than one episode and many of the artists have curated events within the extensive events and film screening programme.
Here are some aqnb recommendations:
Elena Narbutaite and Eduardo Costa’s collaborative swimsuits designed by Costa in the 1980s and materialised by Lithuanian artist Narbutaite in 2016 will be on display in a photoshoot performance called ‘Sun Kiss Feline‘ at the Adelphi Hotel swimming pool.
Installation, Slice a Slanted Arc into Dry Paper Skyby Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh and Hesam Rahmanian, who have smuggled objects, props, works and films from their collection in Dubai where they are living and where they are in exile by shipping container, also @ Cains Brewery.
Arseny Zhilyaev will be appearing in conversation with Tate Liverpool artistic director Francesco Manacorda at London’s ICA on June 23.
The Moscow and Voronezh-based Russian artist will talk in the lead up to this year’s Liverpool Biennial, running July 6 to October 16, where he will present ‘Last Planet Parade’, a small museological exhibition and stained glass windows in one of the few remaining terraced houses of the once-lively and ethnically diverse area of Granby Four Streets.
Zhilyaev’s work focuses on artistic, political, scientific, and museological histories to “uncover and propose potential futures” and the space between fiction and non-fiction by casting “a revisionist lens” on the heritage of soviet museums and their meaning in relation to the history of Russian Cosmism.
Zhilyaev contributed work to the Rare Earth survey exhibition and catalogue (which aqnb reviewed here) and is an editorial board member of Moscow art magazine, Khudozhestvennyi Zhurnal and a contributor to online publishing and archiving platform e-flux.
casts a revisionist lens on the heritage of soviet museology.
