Less than three months after the former Krasny Oktyabr chocolate factory was taken over by one of the world's most famous gallerists, 23-year-old heiress Maria Baibakov has claimed the site as her own with the exhibition "Invasion: Evasion."
Put together from scratch in a month, it features works from 22 young and relatively unknown Russian artists created specially in a makeshift on-site studio.
Baibakov, the daughter of a top manager at Norilsk Nickel, already has an impressive art pedigree, having studied at Columbia University and the Courtauld Institute, curated exhibitions in London and Moscow and managed her family's art collection. But in a space last occupied by the all-stars of the powerful Gagosian Gallery in September, none of this counts as laurels to rest on.
"I really felt like I had something to prove -- the standards of evaluation for me are much higher, the level of expectation is there," she said in an interview. "People don't really trust often what young curators are going to come up with."
Though Baibakov and Tennessean co-curator Kate Sutton have no pretense to presenting a "snapshot" of Russia's new wave, the show still feels more contemporary than much of November's Kandinsky Prize exhibition, which alleged to be doing exactly that. This is partly due to an impressive and varied use of material -- painting here is in short supply -- but more so to a noticeable absence of motifs from politics, Soviet aesthetics and the Russian avant-garde.
The only explicitly political piece comes from comic-strip agitationists and recent Kandinsky Prize laureates PG Group. Their montage "The Purge (Part 1)" depicts Russian nouveau-riche dignitaries tricked into attending a gala opening only to be massacred with machine guns by the group's balaclava-clad members.
Herself one of PG's victims, Baibakov instructed her artists to avoid contemporary themes or trends and focus instead on what the project affords. "I said 'No Putin, no Medvedev' [and] I didn't have to say no black squares," she explained. "We're moving forward, and I'm interested in proactive behavior, creating rather than reacting to. The only way to do that is through new media and through concepts that are universally applicable."
Though it's difficult -- and probably unfair -- to imagine much here appearing in Gagosian's next catalogue, the show is extremely effective as a whole. Many of the artists incorporated its theme into their usual oeuvre, such as with Rostan Tavasiev's stuffed animals, Irina Korina's installations or PG's piece. The most successful works, however, take full advantage of the space, literally and metaphorically building themselves into it.
"When I came here for Gagosian, I fell in love straight away, specifically with this space, because I really like this site-specific kind of work," explained Alina Gutkina, whose installation "Black Holes" is one of the foremost examples of this. Cloths are draped in one corner of the room around a massive centerpiece that emits ominous construction sounds.
The piece represents Gutkina's interest in Moscow's changing landscape. "When they're building or restoring something, they cover it up with that kind of big cloth. There's all sorts of noises going on under it, but you don't know what the final result is going to be."
Kostya Novikov and Ivan Plusch's folding wooden box "One Square Meter of Living Space" at the other end of the floor is a more sardonic take, inspired by plans to convert the factory into luxury flats. "Land here is very expensive," Novikov said. "So when two people stand in the center of this installation, they pull the rope and the sides enclose them in their own personal square meter."
Baibakov herself admits that she knows neither how long the project can last -- subject largely to the machinations of the real estate market and financial crisis -- nor what the next exhibition will be, though a Jean-Michel Basquiat retrospective is penned in for March. But the expiry date is key to her vision.
"We don't have any intentions to build a permanent collection. We're interested in doing cool, young, new projects that'll be engaging and multidisciplinary," she said. "When you have a space for too long, it becomes a little stale."
Put together from scratch in a month, it features works from 22 young and relatively unknown Russian artists created specially in a makeshift on-site studio.
Baibakov, the daughter of a top manager at Norilsk Nickel, already has an impressive art pedigree, having studied at Columbia University and the Courtauld Institute, curated exhibitions in London and Moscow and managed her family's art collection. But in a space last occupied by the all-stars of the powerful Gagosian Gallery in September, none of this counts as laurels to rest on.
"I really felt like I had something to prove -- the standards of evaluation for me are much higher, the level of expectation is there," she said in an interview. "People don't really trust often what young curators are going to come up with."
 Baibakov Art Projects |  |
| |
The only explicitly political piece comes from comic-strip agitationists and recent Kandinsky Prize laureates PG Group. Their montage "The Purge (Part 1)" depicts Russian nouveau-riche dignitaries tricked into attending a gala opening only to be massacred with machine guns by the group's balaclava-clad members.
Herself one of PG's victims, Baibakov instructed her artists to avoid contemporary themes or trends and focus instead on what the project affords. "I said 'No Putin, no Medvedev' [and] I didn't have to say no black squares," she explained. "We're moving forward, and I'm interested in proactive behavior, creating rather than reacting to. The only way to do that is through new media and through concepts that are universally applicable."
Though it's difficult -- and probably unfair -- to imagine much here appearing in Gagosian's next catalogue, the show is extremely effective as a whole. Many of the artists incorporated its theme into their usual oeuvre, such as with Rostan Tavasiev's stuffed animals, Irina Korina's installations or PG's piece. The most successful works, however, take full advantage of the space, literally and metaphorically building themselves into it.
 Baibakov Art Projects | |
| |
The piece represents Gutkina's interest in Moscow's changing landscape. "When they're building or restoring something, they cover it up with that kind of big cloth. There's all sorts of noises going on under it, but you don't know what the final result is going to be."
Kostya Novikov and Ivan Plusch's folding wooden box "One Square Meter of Living Space" at the other end of the floor is a more sardonic take, inspired by plans to convert the factory into luxury flats. "Land here is very expensive," Novikov said. "So when two people stand in the center of this installation, they pull the rope and the sides enclose them in their own personal square meter."
Baibakov herself admits that she knows neither how long the project can last -- subject largely to the machinations of the real estate market and financial crisis -- nor what the next exhibition will be, though a Jean-Michel Basquiat retrospective is penned in for March. But the expiry date is key to her vision.
"We don't have any intentions to build a permanent collection. We're interested in doing cool, young, new projects that'll be engaging and multidisciplinary," she said. "When you have a space for too long, it becomes a little stale."
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