19/92. At First

Venue: MMOMA, 10 Gogolevsky boulevard, building 4

Curator: Daria Kamyshnikova, Lena Vazhenina

Dedicated to Vera Dazhina,
the School’s founder and inspirer,
in anticipation of the 25th anniversary of the School Free Workshops

The Moscow Museum of Modern Art and the School of Contemporary Art Free Workshops present the 19/92. At First exhibition as part of the special project of the V Moscow International Biennale for Young Art.

The exhibition explores the history of the School of Contemporary Art Free Workshops. The curators set the task to remember the whole history of the School from its very beginning, to follow the path of those who stood at its origins, to analyze its contribution, its merits, to exhibit works by the current teachers, who educate the new generation of artists and curators, as well as works by students, school graduates, participants of the Museum’s youth exhibition programs, which are the main result of the School’s activities.

On the one hand, the exhibition will be summing up the School’s evolution with meetings, discussions, dreams of its founders, who led to the birth of the School. On the other hand, it is a dream of a new home for the future art, the art of tomorrow, the anticipation of a new phase of creative development. Over the years, the School has accumulated legends, history, archives, and students. Many people attended it. And the School needs a «home» to live on and develop with new forces and in full measures. It is the building, where the exhibition will take place. It will later become its constant residence. For many years, the School has been situated in the MMOMA premises at 25 Petrovka Street, while youth exhibition projects have occurred at 10 Gogolevsky Boulevard. Moving to the new site will mark the reunification of the School’s educational and exhibition activities, finding wholeness and self-concept, stepping up to a new level.

The School of Contemporary Art Free Workshops is one of the oldest Russian educational institutions of contemporary art, created by a group of art historians and artists in 1992. Among them there were such artists, as Alexander Ponomarev, Vladimir Kupriyanov, Vladimir Nasedkin; MSU professors Vera Dazhina and Valery Turchin and others. For many years, the School has been searching for its way, changing spaces and vectors of development. But in 2000, it became part of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art and a new round of its history began. Over the years, a whole generation of artists, who owe their success to the Museum’s youth policy, has formed.

The exhibition participants (teachers, graduates, students, partakers of many exhibition programs of the School) are Crocodile Power, Tatiana Badanina, Natalia Danberg, Andrei Bartenev, Aleksey Diakov, Vladislav Efimov, Anna Zhelud, Irina Iva, Maria Ionova-Gribina, Viacheslav Koleichuk, Alexander Konstantinov, Anton Kuznetsov, Alexandra Kuznetsova, Vladimir Kupriyanov, Oleg Makarov and Patrik K.-H., Roman Mokrov, Vladimir Nasedkin, Dmitry Okruzhnov and Maria Sharova, Vladimir Opara, Alexander Ponomarev, Vladimir Potapov, Marina Rudenko, Maria Safronova, Ilya Fedotov-Fedorov, Marina Fomenko, Yuri Shabelnikov, Iraida Yusupova and Alexander Dolgin.