Exhibition project of the Goethe-Institut "Border". 16+

Where does Europe end and where does Asia begin? What are the boundaries and who draws them? These are the main issues of the Goethe-Institut Border’s new exhibition project, which was created in collaboration with partners from Eastern Europe, Germany and Central Asia and is designed for several years. The exhibitors are young artists from 16 cities in 11 countries of Europe and Asia. The exhibition opens in Moscow. Then he will go to St. Petersburg, Krasnoyarsk, Kiev, Tbilisi, Minsk and Dortmund, and in 2018 he will continue his journey in Central Asia.

Project curators: Inke Arns and Thibaut de Reuter.
With the friendly support of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Dates of the exhibition in Moscow: February 1 - February 26, 2017

Location: Museum and Exhibition Complex of the Russian Academy of Arts Zurab Tsereteli Art Gallery, ul. Prechistenka, 19, Moscow
Partners: Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA), Russian Academy of Arts (PAX)

The Border project explores and analyzes borders and their emergence in a variety of forms: as territorial isolation or, on the contrary, as annexation, as cultural, personal or social barriers, as a tool that separates "us" from "others" or, in fact, generates this dichotomy. The word "border" here should be understood as a metaphor, as a conditional image, which is the subject of an agreement and subject to change - a hot topic for Russia and the former Soviet republics, as well as for Germany and Europe. In this case, the “red line” is the geographical and cultural border between Europe and Asia. The project considers these topics from the standpoint of artistic creativity, from the cultural dimension. Astrid Vege, head of the cultural programs department of the Goethe Institute in Moscow: “Our goal is to contribute to the most comprehensive study of the processes, motives and causes of the emergence of borders.”

The project focuses on the young generation of artists who, starting in 2017, will present their understanding of the topic, their thoughts on it at a traveling exhibition in Eastern Europe, Russia, Central Asia and Germany. Anastasia Zhivkova, in her series of photographs “The Limits of the Gilea,” examines three natural “cordons” in the south of her homeland in order to explain the abstract concept of “border” to the viewer as clearly as possible. The group “Where the dogs run” (founded in 2000 in Yekaterinburg) addresses the topic of time-line boundaries. The smallpox vaccination trace is the physical mark of everyone who grew up with the USSR. The younger generation “with smooth hands” lives, as it were, on the other side of the border, like a different biological species. The electromechanical theater “Phobia of the Other” will show how these distinctive signs were applied. Olga Zhitlina, together with a group of artists and labor migrants from different countries of the post-Soviet space, is looking for cultural features common to all. In her work “Nasruddin in Russia” (2014), she explores the binding, borderless power of humor. Can laughter at least temporarily make people forget about what separates them? Will humor protect against racial prejudice? The concept of freedom plays a major role in another work, “All Borders Within Us,” by Viron Erol Werth. The work is a scarf, on each side of which is printed a female hairstyle. Putting on a scarf, the woman “tries on” one of them, although her head remains covered.

So it is proposed to resolve the issue of the need to wear a scarf to Muslim women (or non-Muslim women in Muslim countries). The installation of “One Hundred Bowls” by Katya Isaeva is a kind of cultural research based on one subject of material culture. A trip to Central Asia in Soviet times was one of the few opportunities to get acquainted with a different culture - people willingly brought pialas home as an outlandish souvenir. Each subject has its own story, but together they constitute an allegorical narrative of the interpenetration of cultures. “Field” cultural research is the basis of the work “Nineteen a Day” by Taus Makhacheva. In one day, she and wedding photographer Shamil Gadzhidadayev visited 19 randomly selected weddings in Makhachkala without invitation. The artist congratulated the newlyweds, danced, ate and took stereotyped pictures, guided by the professional experience of her assistant.

Complementary events will be held along the entire route of the exhibition, at which local experts and experts from Germany will speak. The curators of the exhibition are Inke Arns, director of the public organization for the promotion and support of HMKV media art in Dortmund and Thibault de Reuter, curator and art critic from Berlin.

Participants of the exhibition: Umida Akhmedova and Oleg Karpov (Tashkent, Uzbekistan), Alisa Berger (Cologne, Germany), Viron Erol Werth (Berlin, Germany), Aytegin Dzhumaliev (Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan), Natalya Du (Almaty, Kazakhstan), Saule Dyusenbina (Almaty, Kazakhstan), Anastasia Zhivkova (Kiev, Ukraine), Olga Zhitlina (St. Petersburg, Russia), Katya Isaeva (Moscow, Russia), Anton Karmanov (Novosibirsk, Russia), Alina Kopitsa (Kiev, Ukraine), “Where dogs are running ”(Yekaterinburg, Russia), Gaysha Madanova (Almaty, Kazakhstan / Munich, Germany), Taus Makhacheva (Moscow, Russia), Eleanor de Montesquieu (Berlin, Germany), Stanislav Mucha (Berlin, Germany), Hamlet Hovsepyan (Ashnak, Armenia), Marat Rayymkulov (Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan), Alla and Alexey Rumyantsevs (Dushanbe, Tajikistan), “Khinkali Juice” (Georgia), Alexander Ugay (Almaty, Kazakhstan), Farhad Farzaliev (Baku, Azerbaijan), Sergey Shabohin (Minsk, Belarus).