The IV Ural Industrial Biennale of Contemporary Art has started. Section “Technological Literacy”. Screening and discussion of the film Hyperstition

The 4th Ural Industrial Biennale opened on September 14 contemporary art. This time the project was carried out on a special scale: in addition to the main exhibition, research and special projects, itineraries of art residences were also prepared, introducing the guests of the biennale to the Ural industrial heritage, the Biennale University was launched, which included an extensive program of lectures, reading groups and discussions with the participation of famous Russian and Western theorists. Not to mention the impressive parallel program. The main project was curated by Joan Ribas, and the theme of the exhibition was designated “New Literacy” and was dedicated to the visual and discursive exploration of the fourth industrial revolution in the field of information and communication technologies.

Leili Aslanova: First of all, I, who was in love with the Urals, was attracted to the industrial biennale of contemporary art by its geography. It is with particular pleasure that I monitor the art scene of Yekaterinburg: I ​​am impressed by the professionalism and outlook of local actors, including artists. Although the latter, perhaps due to their awareness, often sin by using commonplaces and demonstrating truisms, most often they are heroic, ethical, and contagious in their sense of freedom.

Unlike most residents of the regions, Ekaterinburg residents seem to lack a provincial complex. The local art community does not perceive the city as a transit zone, trying to think strategically in order to qualitatively transform the environment. Let us remember the initiatives of the curators Naila Allahverdieva and, who at the beginning of the 2000s were the first to introduce contemporary artists from “ghetto workshops and galleries” to the streets as part of public art festivals “ Long stories Ekaterinburg", in the meantime, raising a whole generation of young artists, such as, for example.

The Ural Industrial Biennale of Alisa Prudnikova is also in the logic of change and development of the city and region.

The main exhibition of the 4th Ural Industrial Biennale cannot be called concocted. “New Literacy” is put together convincingly and the semantic parallels of curator Ribas are found. Beginning with classic movie The Lumiere Brothers' Exit of Workers from the Lumiere Factory (1895) and the text installation "Work" by the group "" from Nizhny Tagil, which manifests the new fate of former production areas, such as the instrument-making plant, which became the venue for the exhibition. Continuing with lines of intuition and adaptation of bodily behavior in modern conditions, as well as visual poetry. Only the courtyard with works street artists and the floor with the final exhibition of the art residency programs create confusion, as they “get stuck” in the main project and make the exhibition at the factory immensity for a one-time visit. But is this a claim when from the very beginning we are talking about an exhibition of 6 thousand square meters?! And I turn a blind eye to this because of the most delicate sound installation, which is presented among the residents’ projects. Its name About The Heaviest Wave(2017), and the author is Rudi Deselliers from Switzerland.

The projects “Evaporation of the Constitution of the Russian Federation” (2017) by the creative association “”, which works on a fatal and meditative effect, which only happens with a faulty plumbing faucet, and the extreme immersive practice for volumetric lungs called “Protest Aerobics” from the Krasnodar group “”. I note that the fertile ground for understanding these two statements was the liberal overexcitement from visiting the Boris Yeltsin Museum. The scenography of the museum and the presented chronicle of events that took place on the way to the establishment of democratic foundations aroused mixed feelings in me - feelings of powerlessness and the need to mobilize to resist the encroachment on freedom in an environment where the ruling elite has its own “new literacy”, which allows them to ignore the basic laws of the state .

And, damn it, in contrast to the polished Yeltsin Center former building instrument-making plant immediately caused me a depressive attack. The cinematic shabbyness of the loft in 2017 already seems like an allergen. I know the feasibility and environmental friendliness of revitalizing such areas. But not in this case: for the former Instrument-Making Plant, the Biennale is the latest hype of a plant condemned to demolition. In this regard, Timofey Radi’s work on the roof of the building, which is a structure of neon letters that form the question: “Who are we, where are we from, where are we going?” acquires depth. The text, which I first read as a clever curatorial rhyme to the posters of “Truisms” (1978-87) by Jenny Holzer, suddenly became in tune with the feeling of disorientation in the darkness of our days, when, according to the recent testament of another Russian genius, director Boris Yukhananov, it is necessary to perform actions “according to production of autonomous light."

4th Ural Industrial Biennale. Work by Evgenia Machneva in the art residency program. // Anna Marchenkova

Sergey Guskov: It always seemed to me that the Ural Industrial Biennale was an accident. Well, something large-scale and at the same time not embarrassing cannot exist for so long and not deteriorate in the conditions in which we have been living for 15 years, or even more. But despite all the difficulties caused by economic realities and decisions of big bosses, the biennale survived. And most importantly, it was recognized as an important event the same ones big bosses. They are clearly not going to close it, although back in 2012, when the second edition of the exhibition took place, only the employees of the Ural branch of the NCCA, that is, those who were directly involved in its organization, had no doubt about the need to hold a biennale. And maybe a couple hundred fans of this initiative from the artistic community. At the same time, the next biennale was postponed for another extra year, since attention and budgets were focused on the Moscow International Biennale of Young Art, which at that time coincided in years with the Ural Biennale. Much water has passed under the bridge since then, the NCCA became part of ROSIZO, the bosses changed, the residents of Yekaterinburg, as well as the leadership of the city and region, paid attention to the event that takes place every two years in the center of Russia.

And finally, the focus on “industriality” began to slowly but surely transform into something else. Still, it is impossible to talk all the time about the past, heritage and how to work with it. By and large, the topic was closed during the first edition, which was done by David Riff. But it still hung a noticeable shadow over the second and third Ural Biennale. However, then the curators - Yara Bubnova, Li Zhenhua, and Biljana Ciric - carefully diverted all this urban and historical background into some other stories - as it seems to me, to the displeasure of the organizers. Although maybe I'm wrong. The current, fourth biennale, of course, had some references to the word “industrial”. For example, the curator of the main project, Joao Ribas, answering the question of what the theme “New Literacy” means, said that it is “the language of the fourth industrial revolution.” But in my opinion, this was just a tribute to politeness towards the biennale and a diplomatic gesture intended for the leaders of the NCCA-ROSIZO and the Sverdlovsk region. Moving on to other topics is good. The curators should have their own line, which they follow from project to project, and the biennale should have a coherent organization and flexibility in relation to those who come to do the main program.

Ribas's choice of artists was quite bold. The list of participants included completely disparate characters; many of them not only wouldn’t sit at the same table with each other, but simply wouldn’t even look at each other. Nevertheless, this risky alliance worked, since the curator, it seemed to me, proposed several exhibition-thematic leitmotifs. Moreover, he did not do like the curators of “Garage” at the triennial - there was a nook for each topic. No, the story is about today's languages, the plot is about side effects and the properties of today's communication, melancholy stories about the past stuck in the present, and a chapter on the prehistory of the “new literacy” - all this passed through the exhibition, intertwining and intersecting, colliding and even fighting, but not separating from each other in separate rooms. Which is especially valuable in a country where exhibitions are thought of more discursively, that is, as a story, as literature, and not as a spatial construction of connections. I hope that the figures responsible for the exhibitions who visited the current Ural Biennale will take something away from their minds.

Of course, at the 4th Ural Biennale there are several works that are not exactly the main ones, but in some way key to understanding what this exhibition is all about. It's extremely minimalist, already classic video American artist Yvonne Rainer's "Hand Cinema" (1966) is a truly visionary work, which today is seen in a completely different light than 50 years ago, when it was created. A dance of the hand that anticipates our gadget present. In addition, this is the “” group with a project from 2015, which over the time since then has been called both “Protest Aerobics” and “Protest Aerobics”, and now simply “Aerobics”. Doesn't matter. The main thing is how they staged this performance with virtual raising of banners and wringing of hands at the opening of the biennale together with coach Sveta Isaeva, without whom they would not have achieved such drive (they promised to hang a video of this action in the corner recorded behind the “spare parts”). Well last work one of the key ones is the stunning film “The Museum is Closed” (2004, in English the title is even cooler - “ No Show") by Dutchman Melvin Moti about the Hermitage, from where works of art were evacuated during the siege. But in general, you can see a lot of good things there, a huge number of high-quality works. There are only a couple of curatorial misses, like a newspaper Aperto, which, with all due respect to its creators, looked somehow alien there. Otherwise - success!

Irina Kudryavtseva: The Ural Industrial Biennale, thanks to its creators, has become the largest international project in the field of contemporary art in the Ural region. Everyone needs this exhibition: spectators are waiting for it, artists and curators are preparing for it, local officials are betting on it. Skeptics also pay close attention to the Ural Biennale, and, in my opinion, they are becoming fewer every year. The main obvious achievement of the project throughout the seven years of its existence remained the ability and willingness to present the local specific context within the framework of a multi-part international exhibition. For the first Biennale (2010), this trump card was special projects implemented at existing enterprises in Yekaterinburg; viewers were often attracted by the unique opportunity to visit real factories and, as a pleasant bonus, to see art more or less successfully interacting with production environment. From this experience, in 2012, a whole program of art residencies appeared within the structure of the biennale, consistently developing the communication between the artist, the factory and the viewer. Within the framework of the third biennale (2015), the most successful and successful were the research project dedicated to the exhibition venue - the Iset Hotel (part of the constructivist complex "Town of Chekists"), as well as the promenade performance "Breach", which tells the story of the wanderings of a security officer in the afterlife . Thus, the main projects of the first three biennials, collected by invited curators, often remained only in the field of attention and evaluation of the professional viewer. Which in the case of “Drummers of mobile images” (curators Ekaterina Degot, David Riff, Kosmin Kostinas) and “The eye never sees itself” (curator Yara Bubnova) was annoying. The fourth edition of the Ural Industrial Biennale has largely changed this logic. The exhibition by Joan Ribas “New Literacy” is maximally addressed to the viewer, listens to their needs and protects attention. This effect enveloping each visitor is created by the strict logic of the exhibition, stated already in the curator’s introductory statement, and by the successful arrangement of works that evokes a natural sequence general story about a revolution of information, things and, ultimately, people.

Despite the unprecedented scale of the project announced this year (not only the cities of the Sverdlovsk region, but also neighboring regions - Chelyabinsk, Tyumen regions and Perm Territory) joined the biennale, as well as the unique practice of 59 excursion routes, the biennale, gaining significant weight and status, begins to show a tendency towards centralization. The site of the Ural Instrument-Making Plant, which housed the Main Project, the final exhibition of the Art Residence Program, research projects, Symposium and Educational program acquired the unspoken status of the “Ural VDNH”, where all the achievements of contemporary art are collected under the wing of the biennale.

As a successful and ambitious project, the industrial biennale is instrumentalized by politics and business. What are the organizers themselves interested in? international project, who initiated this year in partnership with the V. Potanin Charitable Foundation the forum “Culture as an Enterprise”. In addition to this, official and informal visits of the governor to the exhibition site, which have become a good tradition and coincided with the election campaign.

Year after year, the Ural Industrial Biennale surprises and amazes with how much the project each time becomes more mature, powerful and frighteningly comprehensive. In this beauty and scale, nostalgia for the underground of the first Art Factory festivals (2008-2009), from the experience of which the Biennale “grew” at one time, inevitably sets in treacherously. But there is no turning back.

Maria Sarycheva: During the first Ural Industrial Biennale, I lived in Ufa. It always seemed to me and my friends that something amazing was happening in Yekaterinburg: we went there for parties and concerts, we went there for events. When we learned that a “biennale” was being held in Yekaterinburg, we realized that the cultural gap between us and Yekaterinburg would never be bridged. The appearance of this word in the local lexicon art scene seemed completely unattainable. Envy of the developed artistic infrastructure of the Urals compared to Bashkiria has never left me.

The fourth biennale became for me the first biennale of all industrial ones, and immediately post-industrial. I missed all the thoughts about the factory heritage of the Urals and found myself in the context of an already formed biennale. Therefore, going beyond Yekaterinburg and an expansive development model seem completely logical to me. The Biennale complex is exactly the same industrial complex, which expands over time: branches create branches. Considering the potential for replicating the practices of the Ural Biennale, it makes sense for workers in the exhibition industry to focus their attention on new models of communication with the viewer demonstrated in this edition of the exhibition: be it the opportunity for the viewer to call Ural artists on their mobile phones and hear a description of the work spoken by the artist himself, or a program mediation, successfully carried out for the fourth time. In addition, the biennale becomes a catalyst for a large number of new experiences for the Ural context: be it a large-scale residency program curated by Zhenya Chaika or the creation of an archive of zines collected through open calls throughout Russia.

Yes, the choice of artists was impeccable. Yes, Joan Ribas did a “competent” curatorial job. Yes, everything that needs to be said has been said. I risk turning into a character who always and everywhere says “this is inaccessible,” but for me, the “new literacy” of the Ural Biennale, unfortunately, did not materialize: visiting the exhibition with a deaf friend was complicated by the lack of subtitles. No, this happens not only at the industrial biennale - it happens at almost all exhibitions of contemporary art, but for some reason in connection with this exhibition it was especially offensive, probably because it was about the “liquidation of illiteracy”, and it’s time to talk about “elimination of mechanisms that create illiteracy.”

4th Ural Industrial Biennale. Art residence project // Anna Marchenkova

Alexander Burenkov: Reflecting on the curatorial approach, the general artistic decision of the biennale as the main cultural event not only of Yekaterinburg, but the entire Ural region, as well as the aftertaste that remains from it, the word “block” comes to mind - it is impossible not to be impressed by its ambition and scale (special projects in cities Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk and Tyumen regions, as well as Perm region, 19,000 kilometers of the total length of all 59 routes of the “art residency” program), the rudeness and straightforwardness of the questions posed, as well as the methods for solving them - what is the value of Timofey Radi’s work “Who are we, where are we from, where are we going?” written in neon pipes a phrase installed on the roof of the Instrument-Making Plant directly above the main project of the Biennale. It seems like the center is quite backward in technologically countries with resource-based economies blue eye talk about post-industrial society and comprehend the problems of the upcoming 4th industrial revolution? In another situation, this might look vulgar or naive, but in the case of the Ural Biennale it sounds “clearly” in the Ural, with the ability to look into the essence of things and articulately make convincing statements, without getting lost in provincialism and sounding truly glocal, in unison with the world art and biennial discourse. It seems that no one else in Russian contemporary art is capable of cutting from the shoulder so competently and to the point that it cannot but command respect.

Text:

Today, September 14, the IV Ural Industrial Biennale of Contemporary Art starts in Yekaterinburg. The exhibition will be open for three months and will end on November 12. The Biennale is divided into parts: the main project exposition, art residencies, performance platform, Biennale University, parallel program and special projects. The Village has compiled a large guide to the events and sites of the industrial exhibition.

1. Main project

The Biennale exposition occupies the site of the Ural Instrument-Making Plant on the embankment of the City Pond. It is located on three floors - that's more than 6 thousand square meters. main topic throughout the Biennale - “New Literacy”. 60 artists from 19 countries explore three ideas united by the new literacy: the image as witness, the choreography of capitalism, the resistant word. According to curator Joan Ribas, at the biennale the viewer observes the changes brought about by the fourth industrial revolution, when the human genome and the smartphone are combined, when the information bit and the atom are connected.

Films by Lumiere and Medvedkin

The exhibition opens with the film “Workers Exit from the Factory” by the Lumière brothers, filmed in 1895. The first film in history to be shown on the big screen serves as the starting point for the entire exhibition. Also on the ground floor they show a film by Ural resident Alexander Medvedkin, who became famous for creating a cinematic train. In the 30s, his film crew traveled in three carriages around the construction sites of the first five-year plan of the USSR and made films about the lives of workers. French left-wing filmmakers were inspired by his work and, in the 60s, also traveled around the country to document the struggle of French workers. At the Biennale, these two films appeared side by side for the first time.

Pilvi Takala office

On the ground floor you can find a typical office: a large table, chairs, white leather armchairs. In this space Finnish artist Pilvi Takala tells how she worked on a big consulting film for a month and did nothing. She sat at a desk without a computer or phone, and spent her working day in the elevator. The artist shows how doing nothing poses a threat to the usual order of things.

"Sauna" at the production of bitcoins

Another iconic work is “Sauna”, created by the Urban Fauna Laboratory. The artists built a greenhouse where heat is created by cooling a computer that performs calculations and mines cryptocurrency. The authors made the production of bitcoins visible and ensured that the information process could be felt.

Decay

In one of the rooms on the second floor there is a work by Olga Kroytor. One day, the artist found old transparencies, inserted them into the projector and saw how they slowly crumbled due to the heat of the lamp. Olga filmed the process of decay and invites visitors to watch the disappearance of images against the background of the peeling walls of the factory.

Universal Desires

Artist Lyudmila Kalinichenko created an installation from wish cards that people posted on the Internet. Her work is a psychedelic space where money, sex, success, health and travel are everywhere. Lyudmila depicted the collective unconscious and created a place of universal desires.

Bedroom fears and gender codes

At the Biennale you can enter a bedroom of fear. Artist Alexander Obrazumov recreated the interior of a bedroom to show how blue screens and familiar objects cause fear and anxiety. Next door, to the music of Tatu, artist Petra Cortright explores the aesthetics of communication and gender codes using the language of Instagram filters, icons and video effects.

Class

Everywhere the works of foreigners are intertwined with the works of Ural artists. Some exhibitions are restricted to adults only. For example, in the room where photographer and teacher Fyodor Telkov created a classroom in which the desks were covered with rude and obscene drawings and inscriptions.

2. University Biennale

Section “Technological Literacy”

Technological philosopher Yuk Hui will explain why digital reality makes it possible to forget about Marx’s alienation from the means of production, and artist Duskin Drum will invite each listener to put themselves in the place of a computer server and unite into a network.

Workshop by Gert Lowinka “What is “social” in social networks”

The Dutch media theorist will offer to analyze texts from critical theory and sociology about social media. The seminar is suitable for those who want to try “slow reading” and speak fluent English.

Section “Knowledge takes time”

Philosopher and author of the treatise “Coindentology” Yoel Regev, philosopher and essayist Pyotr Safronov, art critic Boris Klyushnikov will talk about where time constantly goes, why society condemns procrastination, and whether it is possible to live more slowly.

Section “Aesthetics of Transition”

Art critic Sean Morgan, associate professor at the University of Leeds Vlad Strukov and art critic Natalia Fuchs will talk about how artists carve out beauty from digital noise, how social media has changed the judgment of taste, how “Zoom” and “drag” have re-educated the viewer.

Lecture by artist Babi Badalov

Babi Badalov works with visual poetry, art objects, installations and performances. Lives in Paris. He took part in the XI Biennale in Gwangju, the VI Moscow Biennale, and parallel projects of the 54th Venice Biennale.

Keynote lecture by Lev Manovich “Artificial Intelligence and Visual Culture”

An expert in new media theory will explain how visual culture depends on artificial intelligence and how machines organize what the user sees.

Workshop by Sean Monahan “Remember the Memes”

A two-hour seminar from a New York-based brand analyst and art critic on consumer insight construction and ethnography social networks. Sean will talk about how to conduct and package qualitative research (and why contemporary art helps) using the example of AirBNB and BB Cream cosmetics.

Workshop by Lev Manovich “Thinking with Data”

An introductory seminar for those who want to learn how to use visualization in the humanities and journalism, and how visualization relates to constructivist research in the early 20s. An expert in new media theory will explain the unobvious connection between the concepts of the garden city and the data society.

Lecture by artist Anne-Sophie Berger

She studied fashion design and transmedia at the University of Vienna applied arts. Lives and works in Vienna and New York. Her personal exhibitions “New Words”, “Places for Struggle and Reconciliation”, “Billboards”, “Eternal Optimist”, “Feel” appeared in Italy, Austria, and Germany.

Screening and discussion of the film Hyperstition

The film is dedicated to modern philosophy and its application in financial analytics, information design, consulting and contemporary art. The show will take place at English language with Russian subtitles.

Lecture by artist Taisiya Korotkova

The artist graduated from the Institute of Contemporary Art and the Moscow State Academic Art Institute named after Surikov. The works of Taisiya Korotkova are made using the technique of modern icon painting, and the author independently performs each technological stage, from preparing the board for priming to varnishing.

International Forum “Culture as an Enterprise”

The forum will become a platform for agents involved in the production, evaluation and communication of cultural products. The forum will be attended by Andy Pratt, an economist collaborating with the UN commission, curator and art critic Nicolas Bourriaud, Xavier Decto, Curator of Art and Design in National Museum Scotland, artist and architect Lukash Pantsevich and founder and head of the School of Cultural Studies at the Higher School of Economics Vitaly Kurennoy.

3. Routes of art residences

During the first week, buses to the Biennale’s art residence sites will run on weekdays: they depart at 9:00 from the Instrument-Making Plant. After the vernissage week, routes through cities and manufacturing enterprises Ural will be open only on weekends. In total, 59 routes across 25 Ural cities were developed for the biennale.

Sysert

Modern Sysert has preserved the memory of the times of its former factory greatness. This route will take you through the old industrial Sysert to the craft and artistic Sysert. Guests will see the city and visit a porcelain factory, where tea sets are still painted by hand. As part of an art residency program, Finnish artist Hannaleena Heiska collaborates with this enterprise and creates an object-graphic installation.

Nizhny Tagil

Nizhny Tagil is one of the most famous cities in the Sverdlovsk region and the center of the Ural metallurgy. An ancient factory has been preserved here, turned into a nature reserve and museum. open air, where you can consider internal organization factories of the 17th–19th centuries. It is adjacent to modern enterprises, and as part of this route, guests will visit NTMK.

Polevskoy and Degtyarsk

This route is connected with the history of metallurgy in the Urals: in the preserved Seversk blast furnace you can see how cast iron was smelted in the mid-19th century, and at the Seversky Pipe Plant - how metal is poured today.

Kyshtym

This route will link together historical heritage and contemporary art. Guests will visit two operating enterprises, where they will see liquid malachite and a bath of sulfuric acid, stand on the edge of a graphite quarry and learn about the history and life of the mining town near the factory. Towards the evening they will see an installation by Swiss artist Rudi Deseliers, which he is creating in the Kyshtym “White House”.

Kyshtym and Satka

The trip to Kyshtym will end with an overnight stay among the mountains and lakes in the Zyuratkul eco-park, and on the second day guests will go to Satka, where the permanent residence of the Ural Industrial Biennale operates. The program includes a visit to the Magnezit plant and an excursion to the Karagai quarry, the depth of which is equal to the height of ten ten-story buildings - 360 meters.

Verkhnyaya Pyshma and Bogdanovich

This route will cover two enterprises with which the artists of the art residency program collaborate. “Ural Locomotives” in Verkhnyaya Pyshma has prepared trolleys for Hector Zamora’s installation; guests will be looking for the answer to the question of why we are constantly going somewhere. Bogdanovich OJSC "Refractories" will welcome guests with a semi-dry workshop - this is the name of the pressing of refractories.

4. Performance platform

Screening of the film “Finding Flow”

Where: Ural branch of the NCCA

"Finding Flow" is a short documentary film about dance art Ekaterinburg from director Katya Kallio, program director of the oldest film dance festival Loikka in Helsinki.

The play-performance “Lights of the Urals” about the construction of the first Ural factories

When: September 14, September 20, October 11, October 12, October 18, October 31, November 7, November 8, November 9 at 21:00

Where: Palace of Culture of Metallurgists of the Verkh-Isetsky Plant

The site-specific oratorio “Lights of the Urals” was created by two composers who wrote according to the act: the Swiss Carlo Chicheri and Dmitry Remezov from Russia. The text of the oratorio was found in the archives of the early 30s, and revised for production. The project involves fifty musicians, dancers from the Provincial Dances Theater, choir soloists and artists.

Tour of the Post Theater

Where: Ural branch of the NCCA

Independent theater group founded in 2011 by Dmitry Volkostrelov. The theater's repertoire includes performances based on plays by Ivan Vyrypaev and Pavel Pryazhko, as well as the first productions in Russia of works by John Cage, Alvin Lucier and Mark Ravenhill. During the week of tour in Yekaterinburg the performances “John Cage. Lecture on Something", "I'm Free", "Locked Door", "July", "John Cage. Lecture on nothing”, “Coffee shop owner”, “Silence on a given topic”.

5. Special projects

Exhibition “Territory of the Avant-Garde: Greater Urals”

Where: third floor of the Instrument-Making Plant

Guests will be able to look at the history of the avant-garde cities of the Greater Urals as part of a multi-component and mystical history the edges. The exhibition was created on the basis of archival materials, the study of family archives and expeditions. The study of the avant-garde will reveal an important feature of the region, where the desire for the new was combined with a large number prohibitions.

Exhibition "Peacebuilding"

Where: Nizhny Tagil Museum-Reserve "Gornozavodskoy Ural", Nizhny Tagil Museum fine arts

The Peacebuilding project opened in Nizhny Tagil on August 12. It is located on two sites. In the workshop of the Nizhny Tagil Museum-Reserve “Gornozavodskoy Ural”, artists created a “total rest room” - a metaphorical monument to the work of generations of people who worked and lived here for 300 years. The second site is located in the Nizhny Tagil Museum of Fine Arts. This project involved ordinary people who do not consider themselves professional artists, but at the same time they are engaged in one or another type of artistic creativity.

Exhibition "The Work Is Never Done"

Where: Tyumen Museum and Educational Association

The project's title is a paraphrase of the title of artist Eliza Bennett's work "A Woman's Work is Never Done." Through embroidery, the artist challenges the idea that women's labor easy, and shows its consequences. The exhibition presents works by Tanya Akhmetgalieva, Eliza Bennett, Anastasia Bogomolova, Alisa Gorshenina, Michele Giangrande, and the creative association “Where the Dogs Run.”

6. Parallel program

Exhibition “Time to Collect”

Where: Label Museum of the Astra Printing House

Modern artifact hunters have created a collection for the future, where every item popular culture characterizes the first decades of the 21st century.

Industrial Ural Exhibition

Where:

Artist Sergei Poteryayev talks about inconspicuous places on the map of the Urals. Poteryayev's lens explores a vast space in every sense - from former single-industry towns, villages and disappearing towns to industrial centers and the capital of the region - Yekaterinburg.

Exhibition “Eternal Summer”

Where: Yeltsin Center

The exhibition explores mosaics and sgraffito on buildings from the 1960s to 1980s in Soviet Sverdlovsk and modern Yekaterinburg. Bright colored images diversified the gray industrial landscape and referred to the seemingly timeless Soviet historical and cultural heritage. Ivan Kozlov's photographs and commentary document the function and status of mosaics and sgraffito in modern Yekaterinburg.

Exhibition “Future Past”

Where: Museum of History and Archeology of the Urals

The exhibition “Future Past” is a play on words, a game of meanings and times that are intertwined in the space of the natural science museum. The exhibition invites you to look at yourself through the prism of the future and thereby better understand your present and past.

Concert Pincode Ensemble “Minimalism”

Where: Culture Center "Ural"

The concert will feature music from both classics of the genre and works by composers created under the influence of minimalism. Works by Michael Nyman, Arvo Pärt, Oleg Paiberdin, Alexey Shmurak, Philip Glass and others will be performed.

Exhibition “Intimacy in four acts”

Where: Photographic Museum "Metenkov House"

A project by young British artist Lydia Kononenko, dedicated to studying the influence of emotions on changes in facial expression. She breaks down “talking to a friend” or “talking to a loved one” into tiny behavioral codes and presents them as a set of controlled actions that can be learned.

Project “Museum: Participant Observation”

Where: Yekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts

This is a series of walks through museum halls where viewers will have to focus on their feelings and emotions evoked by space, environment and exhibitions, and then record these reactions and thoughts through notes, drawings, photography, video and audio recordings. The results of unusual communication with the museum will be presented at the final exhibition of the project in December.

Exhibition A Posteriori*

Where: Ural Vision Gallery

Artists Aljoscha, Ilya Fedotov-Fedorov, Gleb Skubachevsky, Dasha Kudinova, E-moe, Vitaly Barabanov will destroy the boundaries between the biological and man-made, digital and material, natural and cultural and will look for new aesthetic forms and types of perception.

Exhibition “Between Fatigue: Towards New Forms of Life”

Where: Palace of Culture of Railway Workers

Nowadays it is no longer possible to draw a line between work and rest - it is blurred by communication, which becomes the basis of modern production. In the fast pace of life, fatigue and anxiety, a feeling of abandonment and depression appear. Artists and sociologists will seek a situation where personal time and the ability to communicate will not be alienated, where communication will serve only personal and collective experience.

Exhibition "Campus"

Where: Ekaterinburg Academy of Contemporary Art and Ordzhonikidzevsky Cultural Center

The research exhibition is dedicated to the history of the building, which today houses the Yekaterinburg Academy of Contemporary Art and the Ordzhonikidze Cultural Center. Since its construction, this space has been in a state of perpetual change of names, identities or architectural and social functions. Built on the principle of a living story, the exhibition will identify and highlight the main reference points life of this architectural monument.

Exhibition "Survival Kit"

Where: Cultural Transit Foundation

Young artists often face censorship or acts of self-censorship and are forced to seek ways of expression through subtle and conceptual methods. “Survival Kit” is the result of six months of work by Turkish and Russian artists over works united by the theme of fine art.

The Ural Industrial Biennale of Contemporary Art started in Yekaterinburg

The Ural Industrial Biennale of Contemporary Art began its work in Yekaterinburg today. For almost two months - from September 14 to November 12 - the abandoned building of the Ural Instrument-Making Plant will turn into a huge art object.

The main theme of this year’s exhibition is “New Literacy”, it is dedicated to the work and leisure of the near future. The artists in their works tried to depict the changes that will soon occur in the social, economic, and cultural spheres.

You can see what the plant looked like before it was given over to be torn apart by artists. It was planned that installations and performances would be organized on several floors, and each would have its own dramaturgy. They wanted to demolish some of the walls in the building, but leave some of the objects (for example, a Soviet-style buffet). In the courtyard of the factory, where master classes, lectures and concerts for young people were held all summer.

Today, the project curators are conducting the first tour of the exhibition. We recorded it on video.

Let us remind you that today, on the performance platform of the Ural Industrial Biennale, screenings of the unusual performance-play “Lights of the Urals” will begin. This is a story about totalitarianism told through dance. The dancers are accompanied by an orchestra, vocalists perform their parts, and the audience can safely move around the perimeter of the hall, from which all the chairs have been removed. Photo report from the dress rehearsal.

From September 14 to November 12, the 4th Industrial Biennale will be held in Yekaterinburg, the theme of which is designated “New Literacy”. We have already written about one of the main intellectual events of the biennale - the symposium. Today we'll talk about the parallel program - this time there will be 23 events and exhibitions from Yekaterinburg, Perm, Chelyabinsk, Kurgan and Polevsky, as well as two virtual projects. We tell you what and where to watch in our city.

Exhibitions of the biennale’s parallel program have already begun to open, and the first was "Time to Collect" in the museum of labels from the Astra printing house. The participants in this project—collectors—are literally collecting time: the exhibition reflects Russian history XIX - XXI centuries in brands and trademarks. You can view it until October 20 at st. Shefskaya, 2g-4.

Next, on August 31, in the “Metenkov House” (Karl Liebknecht St., 36) it opened "(Post)industrial Urals" Sergei Poteryayev. The project consists of 11 series of photographs related to the Urals and the author’s personal experiences of this place.

In the same museum, from September 15, a project by the young British artist Lydia Kononenko will be shown - "Intimacy in four acts". It is devoted to the study of how emotions influence changes in facial expression. In each part of this performance, events such as a conversation with a friend or a conversation with a loved one are decomposed into the smallest behavioral codes and appear as a set of controlled actions that can be learned under the guidance of the artist. Both exhibitions will run until October 29.

Started on September 7 "Eternal summer"— a photo exhibition of Ivan Kozlov at the Yeltsin Center (Boris Yeltsin St., 3), dedicated to mosaics and sgraffito on the buildings of Sverdlovsk in the 1960-1980s and in modern Yekaterinburg. Such art helped create the aesthetic space of the city in the conditions of mass industrial development. You can view these photos until October 8th.

On September 12, two events will be held at once: From September 12 to 24, the consulting group “BZMST and Partners” on Gorky, 17 will hold several meetings for those interested in fine arts. As part of the events, the project curators and their guests will discuss the artists’ works and reflect on the essence of contemporary art. Trainings with interesting tasks and exercises aimed at creating artistic communities are also planned.

On the same day at 21:30 in the building of the Instrument-Making Plant (Gorky St., 17) a production by the Perm Center for Urban Culture will be shown "Youth Technology". Soviet utopia, a naive and daring dream of a bright and fantastic future, which was described in the magazine of the same name. “Technology for Youth” was read by several generations of young people, and, based on its materials, one can consider the history of the country through the prism of the history of bold technical projects.

There will also be musical events: on September 14, at the Ural Cultural Center, residents of the “Other Orchestra” Pincode Ensemble will present a program "Minimalism": music will be played not only by traditional representatives of this genre, but also by those whose work it influenced.

Another exhibition will open that evening: "Between Fatigue: Toward New Forms of Life" in the Palace of Culture of Zheleznodorozhnikov (Chelyuskintsev St., 102) - about changes in the nature of work, communication and leisure. The curators and participants of the project are looking for the possibility of a utopian vision: a social imagination where communication will serve only personal and collective experience; where there will be no work, no rest, and art will no longer serve as entertainment.

"Trellis hanging" will be demonstrated on the street. Pushkina, 12 at the Cultural Transit Foundation from September 15. An exhibition will open there on October 6 "Survival kit", which touches on issues of indirect sociopolitical expression in artistic practice in Turkey and Russia.

From September 15 to October 15 within the framework of the project "Museum: participant observation" from the Yekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts arts will take place series of walks around exhibition halls, during which visitors will need to write down, sketch or film their feelings and emotions from being in the museum space. The results of such an unusual experiment will be shown at an exhibition in December.

Exhibition-quest "Future Past" will be held at the Museum of History and Archeology of the Urals (Lenin Ave., 69/10) from September 16 to October 1. Here you can find and explore possible archaeological finds tomorrow. “Contemporary art for us will tomorrow become a “heritage”, familiar things - “antiques”, and even, perhaps, the very human body in its current state - a set of atavisms for the man of the future. The exhibition will allow you to look at yourself through the prism of the future and thus better understand your present and past,” say the authors.

On September 16, Ural Vision Gallery will present an exhibition A Posteriori / From subsequent. Here the theme of the biennale will be considered as a tool for analyzing the relationship between nature and media culture, primary and contemporary. Works by Russian and foreign authors, including a large-scale installation Ukrainian artist with the world-famous Aljoscha in the author’s “bioism” style, can be seen until December 3 at the address: st. Sheinkmana, 10.

In the project's boundaries "Campus", which launches on October 4 at the EASI and the Ordzhonikidzevsky Central Committee (Krasnykh Partizan St., 9), guests will be able to view archival and recent photographs of the Yekaterinburg Academy of Contemporary Art, take part in a round table on the topic “How to learn contemporary art?” and see the result of the transformation of the academy's courtyard, for which its students are responsible.

The final part of the parallel program will be a synthetic performance "Degree of freedom". Everything happens in a space filled with automatically controlled drones. They form a structure that responds to the movements of the performer. This action refers to new machines that have not yet been invented. The “Degree of Freedom” project metaphorically explores the existence of humans and machines together, based on existing ideas about the future. You can see it in the Museum of Architecture and Design of the Ural State Academy of Arts, st. Gorky, 4a.

More information about all events can be found on the website of the Ural Biennale of Contemporary Art

The old instrument-making plant, located at Gorky 17, was inhaled new life. Instead of working machines, well-established production and workers, there is now a huge art space. The 4th Ural Industrial Biennale (exhibition of contemporary art) is now taking place on the territory of the plant.

The fourth biennale is called “New Literacy”. Its past versions were devoted to the transition from an industrial society to an information society. “New Literacy” touches on the topic of the near future and changes in all spheres of society.

The biennale itself consists of several parts - this is the main project, curated by the Portuguese Joan Ribbos, the final exhibition of the Art Residence program under the auspices of Zhenya Chaika. There is also a program of special projects related to industrial topics. One of these projects is the work of Timofiy Radi “Who we are, where we come from, where we are going.” In addition, the structure of the biennale includes performance projects, a parallel program, a biennale university, an intellectual platform and an educational program.

The fourth industrial biennale opens with the work of the Lumière brothers, “Workers Exit from the Factory.” It is no coincidence that this historically first film greets guests: the biennale is located in a former factory, exhibition guests enter it, and workers from the silent film leave it. Thus, a certain symbolism of actions is born. Something like a “perpetual motion machine”.

Directly opposite the Lumiere film is the work of Alexey Kallim “Spartakovskaya Square”. Here the author fantasizes about the possible future of a real-life Moscow square, adding color and brightness to it.

The project of the ZhKP art group is unusual in that the artists here recreated a copy of their garage, which is located in Nizhny Tagil. It was in this small but creative space that they were born. artistic ideas. It is interesting that the abbreviation ZhKP does not have an exact decoding; it finds a new meaning every time. From the latest version, ZhKP means “Life as Performance”.

“Roll of Honor” is the work of artist Pavel Otdelnov. On the wall are photographs taken in the 1930s by industrial newspaper workers. The artist accurately reflected photographs from newspapers of that time on the board. You may notice that there are photographs without faces. They look creepy, but that’s exactly how the photographs of these people were published in the newspaper.

The workers of the Dzerzhinsk plant, which was later closed, and all the workers were dismissed from it, are looking at us from the “Roll of Honor”. By the way, among these images there is also a photograph of the artist’s grandmother.

Pavel Otdelnov also exhibited his paintings made with paints at the biennale. “Glory to Labor and Science” depicts the same Dzerzhinsky plant, whose workers we saw on the “Roll of Honor”. What is important here is how the artist demonstrates the process of nature taking over the space left by people. We see how birch trees have sprouted on the roof of the no longer operating plant, rust has covered the iron pipes, and the site near the plant has become so overgrown that it is now not so easy to get to it.

The artist Alexandra Paperno was born in Moscow, but at the age of 13 she and her parents moved to the United States, where she was educated at the Academy of Contemporary Art. At the fourth Ural Biennale Alexandra presents most interesting work entitled “On the sleep structure of the sixth five-year plan.”

The Paperno project has a direct historical reference: in 1955, the sixth five-year plan was adopted, within the framework of which projects were developed to reduce the cost of housing. A rational plan regulated the areas of apartments to the nearest centimeter. It was calculated how much free space a person will need it so that he can untie his shoelaces, undress or wash himself.

Now modern people This approach to housing design may seem strange and a little outlandish. Therefore, Alexandra creates a project for a Khrushchev apartment, depicting on the walls the calculations of the architects of that time and showing that living “by centimeters” is quite possible.

The art project “Evaporation of the Constitution of the Russian Federation” from the creative association “Where the Dogs Run” is located in the part marked “18+”.

Here the visitor watches how the text of the Russian Constitution is erased on a large screen. Through a complex engineering structure, the disappeared letters are transformed into water, and then the drops fall onto the irons, tapping out the text of the Constitution in Morse code.

The purpose of this process is to transmit information through steam. But what is the main idea - everyone must understand for themselves. This can be regarded as a literal evaporation, a devaluation of the text of the Constitution. Or it can be understood differently: together with the steam emanating from the iron, we literally inhale and absorb the words of the main document of the Russian Federation.

An extremely interesting and entertaining work of the Fourth Ural Biennale is “Universal Desires” by Lyudmila Kalinichenko. The artist collected “wish cards” that people post on the Internet as visualizations and created a room with universal desires. Along the entire perimeter of the small room, the most “popular” dreams of people are reflected: here are wealth, beauty, sexual desires, and the desire for self-realization.

In the middle of the room, the artist installed a pyramid (a reference to Maslow's pyramid of needs). Thus, the basic needs and desires of a person are located at the bottom; the higher the pyramid becomes, the higher the human desires become, reflected on the walls of the room.

Fyodor Telkov, who presented his project “Simple Confessions,” is not only an artist, but also a teacher at a university. Actually, his work is directly related to the university. Fedor recreated an ordinary university classroom in one of the rooms of the former factory. But the main meaning of his idea lies not in the environment in which visitors to the exhibition find themselves, but in the actual drawings of students left on their desks.

As the artist himself said, these desks reflect the “unconscious” of young people. What they encounter, they think about, experience, process in their heads and then convey it through drawings.

The art residence, curated by Zhenya Chaika, is the result of a project that she divided into six months. In general, an art residency is a place where an artist is brought from another country, he begins to live in it and reproduce the reality into which he found himself through his works. In this project, artists were brought to the factory, where they interacted with workers and observed production processes and later reflected what they saw in their works.

The final art residency features the work of Swiss artist Rudi Deseliers. Its peculiarity art projects is that he explores sounds through installations. At the Biennale he presents an unusual work that allows you to “hear the voice of copper.”

Hannaleena Heiska is an artist from Finland. Her work, exhibited at the art residence, was invented and made under the influence of fairy tales by the Ural writer P. Bazhov. The materials Hannaleena worked with were charcoal and porcelain.

Nina Bisyarina created a real swamp with a floating island in the space of the art residence. A cartoon is projected on the far wall, immersing us in the place Nina is recreating. The art object is accompanied by sounds and smells, which gives visitors the feeling that they are actually in a real swamp.

This is only a small part of what can be seen at the former instrument-making plant. The Biennale will captivate you for several hours. But this time will undoubtedly be extremely interesting and educational!

The cost of a full ticket for a one-time visit for 1 day is 400 rubles. The cost of a discounted ticket for visiting for 1 day (students, pensioners) is 200 rubles. The cost of a subscription for an unlimited visit to the Instrument-Making Plant Site is 2,000 rubles.

We thank the guide of the Fourth Ural Industrial Biennale, Asya Maksimechenko, for the information provided.

Photo: Elena Eliseeva, Alena Skolzina.