Exhibition of St. Petersburg artists "A and B were sitting on a pipe"

The regional directorate presents a new exhibition of the North-West branch of ROSIZO - an exhibition of artists working in the technique of collage, installation and assembly. The name “A and B sat on a pipe” refers to a well-known children’s riddle and reflects a new principle that revolutionized the art of the twentieth century. The technique of collage, installation and assembly has transformed the attitude towards reality. The relationship between the figure and the background, text and context, real and imaginary - all this and much more was embodied in the very principle of combining various fragments into a single whole. Having arisen in the 1910-20s and becoming an effective means of propaganda, this artistic technique gradually transformed into a service one, migrated to the design of books and magazines, Zhekovsky stands and city firewalls.

At the same time, the technique was used as a formal tool by non-conformist artists in the 1960s and 70s. The massive interest in this principle revived in the 1980s in the art of "New Artists", especially in the work of the founder of the group Timur Novikov. During perestroika, collage, editing and assembling become a means of decontextualization of ideology in Pop Mechanics by Sergey Kuryokhin, in the works of New Composers and Oleg Kotelnikov, Inal Savchenkov and the School of Art Engineers and many others. This technique again becomes relevant in the art of the 2000s, when, thanks to new media, the next round of dematerialization of art is taking place.

Participants in the exhibition: Marina (Manya) Alekseeva, Tatyana Akhmetgalieva, Peter Bely, Valery Grikovsky, Elena Gubanova and Ivan Govorkov, Art Engineers school, Boris Kazakov, Vladimir Kozin, Semyon Motolyanets, New Composers group, Andrey Rudyev, Alexander Shishkin-Hokusai.

The assembly of Evgeny Rukhin from the collection of ROSIZO-NCCA and the collage of Timur Novikov from the collection of Maria Novikova will be shown as a historical preamble to the exhibition.

This exhibition completes the presentation program of the regional branches of ROSIZO, which presented projects from Nizhny Novgorod, Kaliningrad, Samara, Vladikavkaz, Tomsk and St. Petersburg during 2017-2018.

Curator - Olesya Turkina, critic, Ph.D. in art, leading researcher at the Department of the Newest Trends of the State Russian Museum. Curator of more than 200 international exhibitions of contemporary art at the Russian Museum (St. Petersburg), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), Pori Art Museum (Finland), Moscow Museum of Fine Arts, New Museum (St. Petersburg), GAO Pulkovo Observatory (St. Petersburg) and others. Curator of the Russian pavilion at the 48th Venice Biennale (1999). The author of numerous publications on contemporary art. Head of the first master’s program in Russia “Curatorial Studies”, based on the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences of St. Petersburg State University together with Bard College (USA).

About the North-West Branch of ROSIZO

The North-West branch of the State Center for Contemporary Art as part of ROSIZO was opened in 1995, becoming the first of eight regional branches.

The priorities of the branch include:

- art and cultural projects that promote the dialogue of contemporary art and the cultural landscape of St. Petersburg;

- art in public spaces, contemporary art in the classical museum;

- Petersburg art today. Projects aimed at the interaction between generations of St. Petersburg artists. Young art;

- international projects. Integration of St. Petersburg and Russian contemporary art in the global art process. Projects representing foreign contemporary art in St. Petersburg and Russia and Russian art abroad;

- educational activities in the field of contemporary art - lectures, seminars, master classes by Russian and foreign artists, curators and art historians.

The North-Western branch of ROSIZO has a residence for artists in Kronstadt. Here, artists are given the opportunity to work on projects as part of international art exchange programs.

About the regional program:

The ROSIZO regional program was opened together with the ROSIZO Regional Development Directorate, established in January 2017, and is designed to maximize the organization’s network resource in practice. The first project within the program is the opening of a platform to showcase the best regional initiatives in Moscow. Every few months, projects of branches of the ROSIZO network are opened on Zoological Street 13, which have become the most striking event in the cultural life of each of the regions. The projects are accompanied by a publishing and educational program aimed at popularizing the specifics of places, developing communication between regions, consolidating experience and integrating local contemporary art into the global context. One of the most important tasks of the program is the development of horizontal connections, the promotion of local artists and curators both in Moscow and in the international context.

The mission of the program is to promote cultural exchange between regions, cultural centers, individual artists and researchers, to develop art and artistic expertise in the regions. The head of the regional development directorate of ROSIZO is Alisa Prudnikova.