MOSCOW.- V-A-C Foundation presents Hosting the Inhuman at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art’s (MMOMA) space on Gogolevsky Boulevard. The multidisciplinary project marks the beginning of MMOMA’s new programme Carte Blanche, which invites art institutions to implement their own curatorial initiatives at MMOMA sites. Bringing together artists, musicians, theorists, scientists and philosophers, Hosting the Inhuman investigates the relationship between material objects, non-human forms of life and the environment. It includes an exhibition, film screenings, a series of talks and an extensive programme of live performances.
Dramatic innovations in biology, medicine, engineering and computer science have redefined the way we see ourselves. Modern technology is increasingly reliant upon, and pervaded by, natural imagery and elemental metaphors, from cloud computing to swarm intelligence. Meanwhile, recent developments in the humanities and social sciences, such as new materialism and actor-network theory amongst others, have contributed to a changing focus from the human to the non-human with all its multiple varieties and competing meanings.
Over 30 contributors examine this shift, exploring the relevance of the non-human within their work. The exhibition takes place in a purpose-built ‘hotel’ inside MMOMA, representing an exemplary non-place and a space of transience. From a reception and lounge to a boiler room, installations, films, sculptures and paintings take over the space. A conference hall provides the stage for weekly talks and live performances, including sound artist and experimental producer Elysia Crampton, musician and co-founder of NON WORLDWIDE Chino Amobi, punk musician Kid Fourteen and doom metal band Nuclear Cthulhu.
Highlights of the exhibition include artist and writer Andrey Shental’s installation A Descent into the Fungal (2016 - 2017), based around the enigmatic disappearance of a fictional mycologist while testing a device for deciphering and recording the information transmitted by fungi. With Butterfly (2017), Alexey Buldakov uses the heat emitted from a processor mining cryptocurrencies to warm the oil in a radiator, providing a new business model for heating the hotel. Other works explore human absence, including the empty landscape of Piero Golia’s Yosemite National Park (2008). The tapestry is one of few remains from when the artist vanished from New York in January 2006, reappearing in Copenhagen three weeks later, having crossed borders without a trace.
Launching in spring 2017, Carte Blanche is a new experimental programme by MMOMA, inviting art institutions to implement their own curatorial initiatives at MMOMA sites. With Carte Blanche, MMOMA aims to develop creative dialogue and synergy, strengthening cultural ties between state museums and other institutions. Guest institutions will select the theme, artists and format of the exhibitions they present, opening up new ideas to MMOMA’s visitors and giving invited institutions the opportunity to address issues such as the implementation of their projects in a different context and familiarity with new audiences. Building on the activities of the museum, it will further MMOMA’s ambition to broaden current perceptions of contemporary art.
V-A-C Foundation is the first institution to participate and will present four projects which analyse the format of museums and exhibitions, looking at new possibilities as well as existing boundaries and limitations. It will expand on V-A-C’s long term programme which explores the role of the contemporary museum.
The participants in the programme include: Chino Amobi, Evgeny Antufiev, Alexey Bogolepov / Egor Rogalev, Vladimir Budanov, Alexey Buldakov, Igor Burtsev, Valery Chtak, Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, Elysia Crampton, Nuclear Cthulhu, Sara Culmann, Vinciane Despret, Dyad & The Sleepers Club, Farhad Farzaliyev, Farhood, Valentin Fetisov, Mikhail Gelfand, Piero Golia, Michael Hampe, Daniel Lefcourt, Kablam, Kepla, Ling, Kid Fourteen, Sergey Konenkov, Mikhail Maksimov, Mårble, Kristina Norman, Ored Recordings, Anastasia Potemkina, Yoel Regev, Lara Sarkissian, Kirill Savchenkov, Andrey Shental, Theater of Mutual Operations, Yves Tumor, Ben Woodard, and Anna Zholud.
Further exhibitions throughout the year in the Carte Blanche programme include: Moscow Diaries, a collaboration between Museum of American Art, Berlin (MoAA, Berlin) and the Centre of Experimental Museology (CEM, Moscow) (15 June—25 August 2017); Kirill Savchenkov: Office of Sensitive Activities, curated by Katerina Chuchalina and Maria Kramar (4 September –10 November 2017); and Vladislav Shapovalov: Image Diplomacy curated by Anna Ilchenko (16 November 2017–25 January 2018).
