Thursday, 24th of November 2011, at 07:30 p.m., the opening of the exhibition "Siberia – the place to hide away" curator Alexandra Semenova with the participation of the artists Alexander Kuptzov, Dinara Hafizova, Tatiana Antonuk, Vasilina Popova, Gleb Pokrov, Roza Mozhaiskaya, Alexey Akimov (Krasnoyarsk, Russia) and Marjan Teeuwen (‘s-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands) shall take place at ANAID ART GALLERY. The persons who are fond of contemporary art will be able to visit the exhibition starting with 24th of November – 8th of December 2011.
The exhibition combines the photos and videos made in Siberia, about Siberia. It also presents contemporary artistic practice in the region.
Interest in Siberia in the world is stable and widespread enough. At least because Siberian area takes quite huge space on the world map – it is possible to compare this area with the area of the whole European Union. At most because Siberia is mythological, cryptic, full of legends and hazard historical facts place. On one hand, the myths about Siberia are quite well-known: icy cold all year round, bears on the streets, drunken men, exiles and convicts people from the other regions of the world and so on. Rather depressive picture. On the other hand, Siberia is one of the places in the world which has original local features in monotonous global world. And it is very important to know for contemporary man that there are some places in the world where it is possible to live by other rules and orders. In addition, according to some eschatological signs: Siberia could be one of rare place to hide away from global catastrophes and something equally depressing.
But it is just the myths. Contemporary Siberia incorporated into the globalization process quite well. And if you come today in a big Siberian city you will see the same urban space as everywhere, the same shops by the same brand names and etc. Also, you will see that contemporary art develops with the same tendencies as everywhere, because we are living now in a open information world.
The exhibition “Siberia – the place to hide away” presents contemporary way to investigate Siberian ideas on the border of mythology and reality with the use of photos and videos.
The most part of the exhibition consists of photographs by creative group “Siberian character”. This group is curated by photographer Alexander Kuptzov and unites the
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following photographers: Dinara Hafizova, Tatiana Antonuk, Vasilina Popova, Roza Mozhayskaya, Gleb Pokrov. For more than one year they tried to catch in their photos Siberian special mentality and to connect this idea with contemporary approaches to photography. It will be possible to see in the exhibition the past Soviet time in archive which nobody wants to unpack, not glam postcards “Welcome to Siberia”, philosophical, sentimental and painful family stories and etc.
It will be possible to see also two video on the exhibition. The first one, “Incredible journey of Italian in Siberia” by Alexey Akimov will show the way to overcome the stereotypes about Siberia. The second one, “Destroyed house in Krasnoyarsk” by Marjan Teeuwen is a special one. It is about contemporary art experience in Siberian and consists of photographs of the installation or three-dimensional abstract painting in wooden house.
The exhibition takes place with the support of Romanian Cultural Institute from Bucharest, Romania.
Alexandra Semenova is an art historian, Ph. D. and chef of curator’s department of Krasnoyarsk Contemporary Art Museum, Siberia, Russia. At the same time, Alexandra Semenova is the one who coordinates the biennale and the projects dedicated to the public space within it. Alexandra Semenova is the winner of an internship within the European Program EUNIC, in order to research for two months the Romanian artistic environment. In the period October 1st - November 30th, Alexandra Semenova will meet artists, will visit museums and galleries coming into contact with both the designers and those who promote Romanian contemporary art. Alexandra’s Semenova entire research in Romania was supported by the Romanian Cultural Institute, Bucharest through the EUNIC program.
Anaid Art Gallery invites you to make an incursion in the contemporary art from Monday to Friday from 11:00 a.m. until 07:00 p.m., and Saturday from 10:00 a.m. until 06:00 p.m. Slobozia Street, no.34, district 4, Bucharest, Romania, phone: +4 021 337 11 87, e-mail: contact@anaidart.ro; www.anaidart.ro
Curator: Alexandra Semenova