RUSSIA 2

The Marat Guelman Art Foundation and White Box are pleased to present RUSSIA 2: Bad News from Russia at White Box and The Annex, and additional venues including Magnan Project’s Annex Space and Ethan Cohen Fine Arts. RUSSIA 2 will highlight the most cutting edge avant-garde Russian art, and will be the first ever New York show for a majority of the artists.

RUSSIA 2 first made its debut at the Moscow Biennial in January of this year when it exposed international audiences to previously underrepresented contemporary Russian art. RUSSIA 2 features renowned contemporary artists exploring the subject of the “other Russia”, one that lies beyond the scope of pro-governmental, overbearing culture. This condition has become more and more dominant in present-day Russia and tends to impose certain restrictive taboos – such as the subjects of Chechnya, religion and the President. These “sacred cows” remain valid for the art sphere as well, leading to clashes between curators/artists/writers on the one hand and the authorities on the other (resulting in an apogee in the recent law-suits against exhibitions of Russian contemporary art and writers).

In this situation of increased pressure on the arts there is only one positive solution: to create a parallel cultural system, a platform that supports a broad range of free artistic expressions. This exhibition is an attempt to build such a platform by gathering creative people in a free artistic working environment.

RUSSIA 2 exists in the geographical borders of the Russian Federation, and is more democratic, multicultural, bent on exploring some dangerous topics rather then being part of a framework of official do’s and dont’s. While RUSSIA 2 distances itself from Putin’s Russia, it is not part of an oppositional party or dissident activity - it is a symmetrical response to the hermetically closed culture of Russia 1 or Putin's Russia.

Artists: AES Group / The Blue Noses Group, Gor Chacal / Dmitry Gutov / Alexey Kalima / Valery KOSHLYAKOV / Alexander KOSOLAPOV / Oleg KULIK / Maxim MAMSIKOV / Gosha OSTRETSOV / Yury SHABELNIKOV / Alexey SHULGIN / Avdey TER-OGANYAN / Vasily TSAGOLOV / Alexander VINOGRADOV & Vladimir DUBOSSARSKY

RUSSIA 2
Bad News From Russia
kuratiert von Marat Guelman und Juan Puntes
Organisaiton: Marat Guelman Art Foundation (Guelman Gallery, Moskau), White Box, New York

Künstler: AES+F, The Blue Noses Group, Gor Chacal, Dmitry Gutov, Alexey Kalima, Valery Koshlyakov, Alexander Kosolapov, Oleg Kulik, Maxim Mamsikov, Gosha Ostretsov, Yury Shabelnikov, Alexei Shulgin, Avdei Ter-Oganian, Vasily Tsagolov, Dubossarsky & Vinogradov