The exhibition Something Will Be Remembered sums up results of the seventh season of the Winzavod's Open Studios project. The exhibition presents works by Open Studios’ residents: Anastasia Antipova, Sergei Boyarintsev, Katya Granova, Viktor Zhdanov, Sergey Karev, Anastasia Litvinova, Yulia Skromnaya, Evgenia Voinar, Mikhail Rubankov, Liza Tokareva and Daria Golovkova.

The artists’ projects are presented in the Open Studios, the Fermenting Cellar and the Excise Hall.

The theme of the seventh season is exploration. In their works, artists reflect on art as a way of exploring the world, in which research becomes a method of producing knowledge and a form of its organization.

Throughout the season, Winzavod’s guests had the opportunity to freely visit Open Studios, observe the process of creating works, get acquainted and communicate with the artists.

Aleksey Maslyaev, tutor of the seventh season: “Residents are interested in the relationships with the past that exist today, which are revealed in personal and family stories, narratives about imaginary universes, current social agenda that arises in art works, places of memory, the inheritance of stylistic traditions, artistic conventions and sign systems. In their works, the artists offer to viewers the experience of contact with past events in which they were not and could not be involved. They show that the possibility of experiencing the past is determined by the unreliability of the very act of remembering: something remains in the memory, something is lost forever.

The title of the exhibition also contains a fragile hope that the experience of being in the Open Studios, due to the special format of work, new social connections, discussions, disputes and professional acquaintances, will become a memorable event for the residents and an important component of their artistic identity.”

The expert council of the season included: curators Olga Profatilo, Alexey Maslyaev and Andrey Parshikov, art critic Boris Klyushnikov, art critic Sergey Guskov, and Sofia Trotsenko, founder of the Winzavod Center for Contemporary Art.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS AND THEIR PROJECTS

Anastasia Antipova works with the themes of loneliness, time, internal and physical transformation of a person. As part of the final project, she presents a graphic canvas with objects. This is a story through the prism of an alternative world about the axis of time, where the past, present and future are equally significant reference systems.

Sergey Boyarintsev creates objects fr om found objects: glass, stones and paper. In terms of form, the works are architectons, in terms of content they are devoted to the topic of language and text. In the artist’s view, the image of culture as a collapsing building which is at the same time eternally under construction, and its wreckage serves as a construction material.

Katya Granova creates paintings by overlaying a painting layer on top of enlarged old photographs, usually found at flea markets. For the artist, this is a form of spontaneous bodily interaction with the everyday world of the past and a protest against ideological speculations with historical events.

Victor Zhdanov works with the themes of escapism, the unconscious, virtual states. As part of the final project, he presents a graphic series that tells about the kkatardaan universe, a sacred island where the only inhabitant lives next to giant beetles.

Sergey Karev sees the essence of creativity “in victory over the severity of necessity.” To create works, he uses an apophatic approach, which helps to re-evaluate the possibilities of painting and art in general as a tool for understanding the world.

Nastya Litvinova focuses in her works on the theme of memory and contemporary perception of modernist aesthetics. The Portal project unites the space of the city and the Internet through the concept of a “wall” as a place wh ere anonymous marginal statements appear, which are subsequently censored and destroyed.

Yulia Skromnaya reflects in her works on the theme of Russian identity. The artist and sculptor appeals to nostalgic images of the recent past and the culture of memes. The author considers the meme as a symbolic communication system that unites people.

Venue: Open Studios (Entrance 20)

Evgenia Voinar creates large-format paintings on topics such as the search for immortality through material form and human memory. The Aesthetics of Withering project is a series of canvases on which the remains of flora and fauna are recorded and rethought. The artist sees symbolism and poetry in them, observing the silent resistance of matter to disappearance, dissolution in eternity.

Mikhail Rubankov presents the installation Alphabet “MR I live in” as a final work. The alphabet is a form of fixation and systematization of images and phenomena born in the inner universe of the artist.

Liza Tokareva created a large-scale project My Altar – a sacral wall consisting of canvases depicting information taken from the streets. The artistic object acts as an image of free expression, censored in contemporary society.

Venue: Fermenting Cellar

Dasha Golovkova works with the theme of instability of the past through photography. She uses various printing techniques: cyanotype, etching and woodcut. In each series there is a transformation of images that change and acquire new meanings in the process of developing the film.

Venue: Excise Hall

ABOUT THE PROJECT

Open Studios is a project which is aimed to support young artists (within the framework of the New Names strategic direction), which combines the principles of a workshop, residence and art school based on one of the leading Russian art institutions, the Winzavod Center for Contemporary Art. An important component of the project is the educational direction, as well as the opportunity to work with a tutor, receive personal professional advice, participate in collective projects, artist talks and master classes.