Bernstrup Tobias
Einhorn Ewa
Dahlberg Kajsa
Lindeen Marcus
Mornvik Terese
The Knife
Сattin Antoin
Klimova Helena
Kovylina Helena
Kostomarov Pavel
Seleznev Vladimir
Liden Klara
Larsson Annika
Karina Karaeva
Jesper Nordahl
The exhibition includes video and performance works that address, in diverse ways, gender and sexuality as central elements of broader social issues. In bringing together artists from Russia and Sweden, the show seeks to expand the dialogue on contemporary art as the site of social critique. A show where such narratives could be juxtaposed and invited to interact, bringing forth contradictions, gaps, unclarities, overlaps, affinities.
Curated by: Karina Karaeva and Jesper Nordahl
Participants: Bernstrup Tobias, Einhorn Ewa, Dahlberg Kajsa, Lindeen Marcus, Mörnvik Terese, The Knife, Сattin Antoin, Klimova Helena, Kovylina Helena, Kostomarov Pavel, Seleznev Vladimir, Liden Klara, Larsson Annika
The exhibition New Gravity/Interesting Thing includes video and performance works that address, in diverse ways, gender and sexuality as central elements of broader social issues. In bringing together artists from Russia and Sweden, the exhibition seeks to expand the dialogue on contemporary art as the site of social critique.
Understanding how gender cuts across other key dimensions of identity has been a declared objective of radical feminist thinking since 1989-90. In reality of course, such an objective - posited against the threat of misrecognising a false homogeneity of women’s (and men’s) experiences – was already embedded in second-wave feminism. At the end of the Cold War and as a new, totalising world order was emerging, the need to reflect on the co-articulation of gender became pressing. It was becoming obvious that the emerging world order would require new strategies, new positions from which to speak and act against it.
Twenty years on, we may as well ask: what narratives do contemporary artists imagine in order to address the undiminished complexity of social relations – relations where gender is invariably found to play a constitutive, and yet always contextualised, role? The curatorial aim underpinning New Gravity/Interesting Thing has been to mount a show where such narratives could be juxtaposed and invited to interact, bringing forth contradictions, gaps, unclarities, overlaps, affinities.
On this occasion, emphasis was placed not on a work’s declared commitment to progressive politics but on its ability to practice differently, to put forward an engaging view. This was deemed more important than each piece providing, and operating from, a fully formed political position. There was also the intention to bring together works that somehow commented on each other through the different discourses that they engage. In other words, beyond offering a plurality of viewpoints, our aim has been to mobilise each work through another work as a starting point and a stimulus in the encounter between art and the public.
Co-organizer: The Sweden institute
Image: Larsson Annika
Public seminar 7 December 2010, 7 pm
Participants: Keti Chukhrov, Kajsa Dahlberg, Pavel Kostomarov, Elena Kovylina, Marcus Lindeen, Nadya Plungyan, Sinziana Ravini
Moderators: Karina Karaeva and Jesper Nordahl
Opening: 6 December 2010, 7 pm
The exhibition opening will feature a performance by Tobias Bernstrup
The National Centre for Contemporary Arts (NCCA)
13, Zoologicheskaya Street Moscow, 123242, Russia
Open from midday to 7 p.m.
Everyday, except Monday.
Evening events start at 7 p.m.; entrance is free