ART CITIES:Moscow-Symbol

Moscow International Biennale for Young Art is a large-scale project realized on the Moscow art scene. The aims of the Biennale are to support and encourage the creative development of a new generation of authors and to demonstrate the work of modern art to interested audiences. The Biennale focuses on a young generation of artists aged up to 35 years.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Triumph Gallery Archive

A parallel program of the 5th Moscow International Biennale for Young Art is the group exhibition “Symbol” at the Symbol Art Park. The exhibition presents 15 works created by Contemporary Russian artists in the forms of sculpture, installation and art-object. The majority of the works are site-specific and incorporate the history of the place in its current context by using the industrial artifacts found there. Apart from its ideological context, the project represents an attempt to create the foundation for a public art park. Here art becomes an everyday life element, the former post-industrial site of Serp i Molot Factory, converts into an experimental ground for large-scale projects.  Socialist regime has created an incredibly powerful set of symbols, an effective tool for precise and clear communication. Today’s reality is replete with various types of signs, images and ideas that penetrate all spheres of life and emerge as an independently functioning language. Although their value, as well as a need for them, might be questioned, it is undeniable that those born around 1990, and the generation following them struggle to find a path among the emerged codes. Numerous combinations of these codes transform our everyday life into an ongoing quest. The exhibition raises the question of what the today’s symbol is. It aims to distinguish the key symbols that hold distinctive meanings and are of particular importance. The location of the exhibition is remarkable in its own way. “Moscow Metallurgical Plant Serp i Molot” founded in 1884 as a metallurgic workshop and became known as the “Goujon Plant”. It is one of the oldest major industrial enterprises in the middle Russia. During the Russian revolution it was a stronghold and renamed after the Communist “Hammer and sickle” symbol. In the past decades it fell into disrepair, unused and overgrown with plants. On 28/4/14 the Dutch Architectural firm MVRDV won the competition to complete the refurbishment of the former factory. The urban concept respects the existing structure of the 85 hectare industrial plot, creating room for a 1.8 million square meter mixed use development. Participating Artists: crocodilePOWER, KGS, KY16, Recycle Group, Georgy Bragovskiy, Ivan Gorshkov, Pavel Kiselev, Ekaterina Kovalenko & Vera Barkalova, Kristina Romanova, Natasha Timofeeva, Sasha Frolova and Alina Chichikova.

Info: Curators: Yana Smurova, Elena Fadeeva, Symbol Art Park, Zolotorozhskiy Val St., 11 bd. 20, Moscow, Duration: 28/6-20/8/16, www.triumph-gallery.ru