What was, what will be, what will calm the heart
Back in the spring, the curator decided to make an exhibition, which would be attended by students and graduates of HSE from the course of modern painting. The vernissage was scheduled for December.
Life made its adjustments. The closer the cherished date, the more variables appeared in the project. Someone has left, someone has decided to stay, someone is laying low in a remote Siberian village. And the mood has changed somehow. None of the participants have ever been in such circumstances. But they decided not to cancel the exhibition, but to use the opportunity to talk about what is important for the participants at the moment.
In extraordinary circumstances, it seems important to talk about how we feel, and how we deal with it, while remaining in the usual professional role. To maintain a sense of community, even if geographically we are on all five continents. And through the usual, routine actions, collect the sense of normality of the world at least a short moment of creation of the project.
«What was, what will be, what will calm the heart» sounds the eternal question of man to the universe, guru, fortune-tellers and analysts. It is not that we have really found the answer, but that is the task of other departments.
But the participants tried as honestly as possible to record their state in this historical point of bifurcation.
Looking into the work, it is impossible not to notice the piercing sense of uncertainty that is inherent in them. Between sleep and reality, here and there, past and future, reality and fiction. Blurry, shimmering images, as if not ready to accept the final outlines. Familiar and familiar subjects: the waiting room, the interior of the cartridge, the wall calendar, interspersed with phantasmagoric drawings of wild animals against the background of the Persian carpet. It is as if the consciousness refuses to evaluate what is happening, giving all the power to the subconscious.
The exhibition features 16 artists. 16 stories that are happening now.
Usually curatorial work begins with an idea. Statements under which the work is selected and the whole project is going. This time there was only a condition.
So this exhibition is more of a story. The curator’s job was to look at it and put it into a general framework of storytelling without narration.
The curator is Maria Nam.
Open Studios
Free of Charge 
Starts at 10:00 