Moscow’s galleries and museums have been taken over by young artists this month as the Second Moscow Biennale of Young Art gets into full swing. The biennale, called “Stoi! Kto Idyot?” or “Stop! Who goes there?” consists of 60 exhibitions, with artwork from more than 600 artists from 53 countries, and runs till the start of August.
Curators Daria Kamyshnikova and Daria Pyrkina defined the Biennale as a “lab,” in which artists, curators and finally the spectators are all part of an experiment to bring a new appreciation of art to the Moscow public and to stimulate young artists all over the world.
“Borders” is the theme of this year’s Biennale, and the art on show looks at problems that go beyond national, political or religious boundaries.
“We chose this theme because it’s very broad and has infinite interpretations,” Kamyshnikova said. “Thanks to the media, the world seems to have become so small that the conception of all kinds of borders inevitably had to change.? We hoped our artists would respond to this challenge, which they did.”
One of the most interesting projects in the Biennale is “Crossing Boundaries,” an exhibition of Mexican art in Winzavod’s Red Hall that opened last week.
The show has paintings, installations, video art and pictures from 10 young Mexican artists. One of the most striking objects is “The Big Trick,” by Cynthia Gutierrez, in which a rabbit is popping out of a magician’s hat with a hangman’s noose around its neck.
“I? don’t think that the exhibition is interpreting the social mood in Mexico only,” curator Claudia Arozqueta said. “[It is] art that has crossed local boundaries, has been exhibited worldwide and that has cross-cultural contacts in a globalized world. The exhibition refers to the topic of time, showing different aspects of this social concept, and how in art there are no limits of interpretation.”
With so much on offer, the art lover could spend days wandering around the myriad of exhibits. But, if you have to choose, then among other standout exhibitions at the Biennale are “Glob(e)scape” at Artplay, curated by Pyrkina, which deals with the problems of living in a global village, and “Reach and Surpass the Center” at the Zverev Center of Contemporary Art, where Russian and Ukrainian artists look at how a new generation has dealt with being born between the socialist and capitalist eras.
The Second Moscow Biennale of Young Art runs through Aug. 2. See http://new.youngart.ru for a list of all of the exhibits.