National Center for Contemporary Arts
Yuri Albert
Tarsila do Amaral
Pablo Baen Santos
Yael Bartana
Bela Balazs Studio
Guy Ben Ner
Blue Noses
Christian von Borries
Serguej Bratkov
Alex Buldakov
Cao Fei
Olga Chernysheva
Chto Delat
Evgenia Demina
Jimmie Durham
Harun Farocki
Daniel Faust
M.M. Fontenelle
Joris Ivens
Christian Jankowsky
Ilya & Emilia Kabakov
Nikita Kadan
Alexander Burlaka
Kolumne Links
Naroa Lizar
Roman Minin
Andrei Monastyrski
Rabih Mroue
Ciprian Muresan
Deimantas Narkevicius
Amshei Nuerenberg
Johannes Paul Raether
Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook
Andreas Siekmann
Alice Creisher
Max Jorge Hinderer
Sean Snyder
Praneet Soi
Hito Steyerl
Mladen Stilinovic
Taller E.P.S. Huayco
Avdey Ter Oganyan
David Ter Oganyan
Florin Tudor
Mona Vatamanu
V.M.Volovich
Lin Yilin
Vadim Zakharov
Alisa Prudnikova
Cosmin Costinas
Ekaterina Degot
David Riff
Shockworkers of the Mobile Image. The Biennial draws together the work of more than 40 artists and filmmakers in a dense curatorial narrative. Confirming the idea that any biennial is a clone, the exhibition consists almost entirely of copies, reproductions, rips, and long-distance works. Forgotten classics and historical displays reveal a geneology for contemporary art in Soviet film and architecture, ever present in the space itself.
initiated and developed by Alisa Prudnikova, curated by Cosmin Costinas, Ekaterina Degot, David Riff
The National Center for Contemporary Art (NCCA) and the Sverdlovsk Region Governor's Office are pleased to announce the opening of the 1st Ural Industrial Biennial. The biennial will take place in the Ural Workers Printing Press (main project) and in four large industrial plants (special projects) in the city of Ekaterinburg. The Ural Industrial Biennial is initiated and developed by the director of the National Center for Contemporary Art, Ekaterinburg branch, Alisa Prudnikova.
Ekaterinburg, formerly Sverdlovsk, is the capital of the Soviet
Union's industrial heartland, the Ural. When the USSR collapsed, the
city's many heavy industries fell prey to economic malaise. But today,
Ekaterinburg has become one of the hubs of Russia's resource economy,
a site of accumulation following an era of shock privatization, a
place where people dream with BRICs and awaken to the harsh realities
of economic crisis. How should we understand all this new investor
architecture, empty as of yet, all these new service industries, all
that new imaginary "symbolic capital" produced by "creative
professionals" and their underlings? What role does and can
contemporary art play in such a place, when it comes to the
half-operational spaces of Soviet industry? Can it be more than a shot
in the dark, a fastmoving consumer commodity, a medium for
gentrification, a plaything of the superrich? Can it be more than a
reproduction?
The biennial's title is "Shockworkers of the Mobile Image," and its
main venue is the Ural Worker Printing Press, a constructivist
building in the center of Ekaterinburg. Built in 1929-1930, this space
prompts a dialogue with the most contradictory period of Soviet
history, when the party sent shock brigades to build heavy industries
in the middle of nowhere. Their superproductive labor was supposedly
voluntary, heroic, based on enthusiasm and affect, but overseen by a
growing security apparatus. Foreign experts and internationalists
participated, reproducing and implanting mobile images of Fordist
modernity. Their engagement was genuine, but remained blind to the
harsh reality of intensifying exploitation. In many ways, Russia's
transition to global post-Fordist capitalism is no less drastic, and
today's global artists, filmmakers, and architects are shockworkers,
too, and internationalists, no doubt, capable of an affective
solidarity much like that of the pre-fascist 1930s. They come to
distant cities, working nights to build temporary factories on the
sites abandoned by industry, factories that reproduce images, affects,
and social relations, factories where free time takes on form and
becomes a commodity. In Ekaterinburg, this temporary factory taps into
a vast reservoir of amateur creativity, harkening back to an age when
it seemed like all the shockwork was over... We want to ask: who is
really the worker in this new factory? The artist? The curator? The
audience? What happens when these workers leave? And what happens when
they return?
Curated by Cosmin Costinas (Amsterdam/Utrecht), Ekaterina Degot
(Moscow), and David Riff (Moscow/Berlin), "Shockworkers of the Mobile
Image" draws together the work of more than 40 artists and filmmakers
in a dense curatorial narrative.The exhibition consists almost
entirely of copies, reproductions, rips, reconstituted objects and
long-distance works, including contributions by: Yuri Albert, Tarsila
do Amaral, Pablo Baen Santos, Yael Bartana, Bela Balazs Studio, Guy
Ben-Ner, Blue Noses, Christian von Börries, Serguej Bratkov, Alex
Buldakov. Olga Chernysheva, Chto Delat, Evgenia Demina, Jimmie Durham,
Harun Farocki, Daniel Faust, M.M. Fontenelle, Joris Ivens, Christian
Jankowsky, Ilya & Emilia Kabakov, Nikita Kadan & Group of Objects,
Kolumne Links, Roman Minin, Andrei Monastyrski, Rabih Mroue, Ciprian
Muresan, Deimantas Narkevicius, Amshei Nuerenberg, Johannes Paul
Raether, Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, Andreas Siekmann & Alice Creisher &
Max Jorge Hinderer, Sean Snyder, Praneet Soi, Hito Steyerl, Mladen
Stilinovic, Taller E.P.S. Huayco, Avdey Ter-Oganyan, David
Ter-Oganyan, Florin Tudor & Mona Vatamanu, V.M.Volovich, Lin Yilin,
among others.
The exhibition at the biennial's main venue is accompanied by a
program of special projects, curated by Alisa Prudnikova. It inhabits
the operational or defunct premises of some of Ekaterinburg's largest
industrial plants. Artists from Ekaterinburg and elsewhere in Russia
and from abroad will turn these production sites into a heterogeneous
territory for experiments in the industrial environment. Factory
spaces themselves become objects of artistic production that pursues a
diversity of aims, be they critical, poetic, or social. The special
projects program features contributions by artists from Russia, Great
Britain, Spain, Germany, Mexico, the USA, France, Finland, and
Sweden.
The opening days of the biennial are September 8th to September 12. To meet the occasion, the biennial is holding an international symposium dedicated to discussion of the industrial past and the post-industrial present from philosophical, sociological, and artistic points of view.
On the occasion of the opening, the biennial will publish a catalogue
in two volumes, one of them dedicated to the main venue, the other to
the special projects program. Contributors include Oleg Aronson, Keti
Chukhrov, Boris Groys, Hu Fang, Ben Seymour and Hito Steyerl.
The Ural Industrial Biennial is a format initiated and developed by
the director of the National Center for Contemporary Art in
Ekaterinburg, Alisa Prudnikova.
Commissar: Alisa Prudnikova
Intiator: National Center for Contemporary Art (NCCA)
Co-Initiators: Governor's Office of the Sverdlovsk Region, the
Sverdlovsk Regional Government with the official support of the
Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation
Organizer: National Center for Contemporary Art, Ekaterinburg branch
Co-organizers: City Administration of Ekaterinburg, "New Art"
Regional Public Foundation in Support of Contemporary Art
Image: Collage by the employees of Ural Worker Printing Press, 1990s. Photo Andrei Luft
The opening days of the biennial are September 8th to September 12.
The biennial also features a parallel program of events and thematic exhibitions at museums, galleries, and library in Ekaterinburg, Nizhny Tagil, and Nev’yansk.
Biennial venues:
Main venue: Ural Worker Printing Press (House of Print)
Special projects: Verkh Iset' Metallurgical Factory, VIZ-Stal', Ural
Heavy Machines Plant, old Uralmash House of Culture, Colored Metals
Factory (historical building), Sverdlovsk Worsted Factory