It&nbsp;can be&nbsp;cold in&nbsp;the Library. We&nbsp;recommend you bring warm clothing.
On&nbsp;July 17 Garage will close at&nbsp;16:00. The 0+ Space will be&nbsp;closed all&nbsp;day. Entry to&nbsp;the concert <a href="https://garagemca.org/en/event/sound-up-garage-concert" target="_blank">SOUND UP&nbsp;x&nbsp;Garage. Meredith Monk</a> will be&nbsp;from one hour before the start time.

Please note

It&nbsp;can be&nbsp;cold in&nbsp;the Library. We&nbsp;recommend you bring warm clothing.

Main Collection

Группа «Синий суп» была создана в 1996 году в Москве выпускниками МАРХИ — Алексеем Добровым, Даниилом Лебедевым и Валерием Патконеном (с 2010 года с группой не работает), а в 2002 году к ним присоединился Александр Лобанов. Художники используют цифровые технологии и язык компьютерной анимации как основной художественный инструмент. Работы группы — это, как правило, короткие зацикленные видеофрагменты, где отсутствуют традиционные драматургические элементы. Они моделируют пространства, напоминающие тревожные видения, лишенные нарратива, монтажной логики и персонажей.
Полиэкранная видеоинсталляция «Эшелон» — часть компьютерно‑анимированной «пейзажной» серии, к которой также можно отнести работы «Озеро» (2007), «Оборона» (2007) и «Метель» (2009). Работа состоит из синхронизированных проекций: две размещаются на противоположных стенах, третья — на полу. На одной изображены железнодорожные эшелоны, пересекающие заснеженную равнину, на другой — колонна грузовиков движется по осеннему полю в сторону зловещего закатного горизонта. Обе колонны перевозят неидентифицируемый, предположительно военный, груз. Третья проекция, расположенная на полу, представляет собой вид сверху — сквозь люк самолета сбрасывают тюки груза. Видео сопровождается механистическим звуковым фоном. Аскетизм визуальных и звуковых элементов, их повторяемость и отстраненность создают устойчивое ощущение тревоги. «Эшелон» — это метафора движения без цели и ощущение надвигающейся катастрофы, к которой невозможно подготовиться.

Группа «Синий суп» была создана в 1996 году в Москве выпускниками МАРХИ — Алексеем Добровым, Даниилом Лебедевым и Валерием Патконеном (с 2010 года с группой не работает), а в 2002 году к ним присоединился Александр Лобанов. Художники используют цифровые технологии и язык компьютерной анимации как основной художественный инструмент. Работы группы — это, как правило, короткие зацикленные видеофрагменты, где отсутствуют традиционные драматургические элементы. Они моделируют пространства, напоминающие тревожные видения, лишенные нарратива, монтажной логики и персонажей.
Полиэкранная видеоинсталляция «Эшелон» — часть компьютерно‑анимированной «пейзажной» серии, к которой также можно отнести работы «Озеро» (2007), «Оборона» (2007) и «Метель» (2009). Работа состоит из синхронизированных проекций: две размещаются на противоположных стенах, третья — на полу. На одной изображены железнодорожные эшелоны, пересекающие заснеженную равнину, на другой — колонна грузовиков движется по осеннему полю в сторону зловещего закатного горизонта. Обе колонны перевозят неидентифицируемый, предположительно военный, груз. Третья проекция, расположенная на полу, представляет собой вид сверху — сквозь люк самолета сбрасывают тюки груза. Видео сопровождается механистическим звуковым фоном. Аскетизм визуальных и звуковых элементов, их повторяемость и отстраненность создают устойчивое ощущение тревоги. «Эшелон» — это метафора движения без цели и ощущение надвигающейся катастрофы, к которой невозможно подготовиться.

Эшелон

The group Factory of Found Clothes (FFC) founded by Natalia Pershina‑Yakimanskaya (Gluklya) and Olga Egorova (Tsaplya) in 1995, has since its earliest works focused on the subject of things as projections of human existence. In their manifesto dialogue for the project Girlfriends (1995) Gluklya and Tsaplya stated: “We are friends, and as well as being soulmates what unites us is our shared interest in Things, and specifically, in their most human variety—Clothes.”

In FFC projects dresses literally spoke to the viewer and told them about the lives of their former owners. They reflected social traumas and fears, relieved themselves of their functionality, and became universal metaphors of human destiny. The duo diversified their work with clothes: they painted fabric and made it into dresses, gave a second life to found costumes, immortalising them by telling their tragic stories, sent them on journeys to dissolve their past in a new existence. 

Interpreted by FFC, an item of clothing would ultimately become a symbol of a character’s inner essence, whether that person was a worker, a retired senior, a diligent schoolgirl or a heartbroken teenager. The main demiurge of their performances and installations, however, was the high‑school student, their alter ego: a figure of romantic recklessness, purity and preparedness for Great Deeds. 

Gradually, their works became more socially oriented, yet their interest in textiles as symbols of life, and in the topic of the feminine, which represents supragender kindness, striving for justice, fragility coexisting with strength in friendship, remained.

Their video installation Scarlet Sails was inspired by Alexander Grin’s novel, whose protagonist Assol is able to cope with all the hardships of an unfair world due to her firm belief in the possibility of a fairy tale ending. The scarlet sails on the white ship of Arthur Gray confirm the reality of her utopian dream, bringing her happiness and peace.

In Gluklya and Tsaplya’s work, young girls do not rely on an impossible (or postponed) happiness, waiting for their prince by the sea. They are ready to create it themselves, sewing scarlet sails in the absence of a manly hero. Suddenly, senior ladies enter their workshop—they have spent years hoping to meet their savior, who will one day arrive from the imaginary. Their discordant choir tries to convince the girls to “believe in miracles,” singing a Soviet song from the Khrushchev Thaw era. Thus, the sober and decisive present meets the dreamy past, which can only wait for solutions to come from the outside. Their confrontation ends in a fight over the Scarlet Fabric, and the past, represented by the sad but persistent old ladies, wins. Grabbing the scarlet sails sewn by the hands of others, the ladies head for the sea, to sail away into the miraculous unknown. 

The ambiguity of the image created by Gluklya and Tsaplya made this one of their best‑known works. Some interpret it politically—red being the symbol of the revolution—although the nature of the revolution here is unclear, since the appropriation of the products of someone else’s labor multiplies the injustice and essentially represents capitalist theft. At the same time, scarlet is the color of Life itself and of the mother’s womb. In this case, the appropriation of the scarlet sail can be interpreted as an attempt to return to a child’s consciousness that is paralyzed in anticipation of a miracle.

The group Factory of Found Clothes (FFC) founded by Natalia Pershina‑Yakimanskaya (Gluklya) and Olga Egorova (Tsaplya) in 1995, has since its earliest works focused on the subject of things as projections of human existence. In their manifesto dialogue for the project Girlfriends (1995) Gluklya and Tsaplya stated: “We are friends, and as well as being soulmates what unites us is our shared interest in Things, and specifically, in their most human variety—Clothes.”

In FFC projects dresses literally spoke to the viewer and told them about the lives of their former owners. They reflected social traumas and fears, relieved themselves of their functionality, and became universal metaphors of human destiny. The duo diversified their work with clothes: they painted fabric and made it into dresses, gave a second life to found costumes, immortalising them by telling their tragic stories, sent them on journeys to dissolve their past in a new existence. 

Interpreted by FFC, an item of clothing would ultimately become a symbol of a character’s inner essence, whether that person was a worker, a retired senior, a diligent schoolgirl or a heartbroken teenager. The main demiurge of their performances and installations, however, was the high‑school student, their alter ego: a figure of romantic recklessness, purity and preparedness for Great Deeds. 

Gradually, their works became more socially oriented, yet their interest in textiles as symbols of life, and in the topic of the feminine, which represents supragender kindness, striving for justice, fragility coexisting with strength in friendship, remained.

Their video installation Scarlet Sails was inspired by Alexander Grin’s novel, whose protagonist Assol is able to cope with all the hardships of an unfair world due to her firm belief in the possibility of a fairy tale ending. The scarlet sails on the white ship of Arthur Gray confirm the reality of her utopian dream, bringing her happiness and peace.

In Gluklya and Tsaplya’s work, young girls do not rely on an impossible (or postponed) happiness, waiting for their prince by the sea. They are ready to create it themselves, sewing scarlet sails in the absence of a manly hero. Suddenly, senior ladies enter their workshop—they have spent years hoping to meet their savior, who will one day arrive from the imaginary. Their discordant choir tries to convince the girls to “believe in miracles,” singing a Soviet song from the Khrushchev Thaw era. Thus, the sober and decisive present meets the dreamy past, which can only wait for solutions to come from the outside. Their confrontation ends in a fight over the Scarlet Fabric, and the past, represented by the sad but persistent old ladies, wins. Grabbing the scarlet sails sewn by the hands of others, the ladies head for the sea, to sail away into the miraculous unknown. 

The ambiguity of the image created by Gluklya and Tsaplya made this one of their best‑known works. Some interpret it politically—red being the symbol of the revolution—although the nature of the revolution here is unclear, since the appropriation of the products of someone else’s labor multiplies the injustice and essentially represents capitalist theft. At the same time, scarlet is the color of Life itself and of the mother’s womb. In this case, the appropriation of the scarlet sail can be interpreted as an attempt to return to a child’s consciousness that is paralyzed in anticipation of a miracle. 

Scarlet Sails

Acquired from Igor Makarevich

Private gift

Acquired from the artist

Acquired from the artists

Acquired from XL Gallery, Moscow

After graduating in graphic design from Camberwell (a college of University of the Arts London), Peter Belyi spent a long time working with xylography, creating “giant engravings on Brazilian plywood.” In 1999 he became a full member of the Royal Society of Painter‑Printmakers, which admits only two artists per year. After returning to Russia in the early 2000s Belyi’s creative practice changed radically. He rejected traditional media in favor of creating installations and objects. Using industrial materials, such as concrete, box profile roofing sheets, electric cable, steel rods or particle board, the artist deconstructs utopian projects of the past, revealing the disappointment and unjustified expectations associated with the functioning and subsequent winding down of the Soviet project. Belyi calls his creative method memorial modeling, where a futuristic concept like the “model” is examined in a critical yet nostalgic light. 

 In creating the installation Pinocchio’s Library, Belyi focused on the image of a1960s architect who is enthused by ambitious ideas of changing the world but is forced to design standard panel‑construction residential buildings. The upward‑focused wooden shelving units are reminiscent of a model of a future urban space that was not destined become reality. The roughly constructed boards are as if doomed to decay and gather dust within one of the numerous Soviet research institutes, eventually becoming a memorial to the last powerful utopian impulse of the twentieth century. Just as knowledge is inaccessible, restricted by rigid censorship and ideological frameworks, so the books in the library cannot be opened and read. The main character in the project, the wooden boy Pinocchio, is concealed within the material of the installation, metaphorically expressing the untapped potential of an entire generation of dreamers.

 After graduating in graphic design from Camberwell (a college of University of the Arts London), Peter Belyi spent a long time working with xylography, creating “giant engravings on Brazilian plywood.” In 1999 he became a full member of the Royal Society of Painter‑Printmakers, which admits only two artists per year. After returning to Russia in the early 2000s Belyi’s creative practice changed radically. He rejected traditional media in favor of creating installations and objects. Using industrial materials, such as concrete, box profile roofing sheets, electric cable, steel rods or particle board, the artist deconstructs utopian projects of the past, revealing the disappointment and unjustified expectations associated with the functioning and subsequent winding down of the Soviet project. Belyi calls his creative method memorial modeling, where a futuristic concept like the “model” is examined in a critical yet nostalgic light. 

 In creating the installation Pinocchio’s Library, Belyi focused on the image of a1960s architect who is enthused by ambitious ideas of changing the world but is forced to design standard panel‑construction residential buildings. The upward‑focused wooden shelving units are reminiscent of a model of a future urban space that was not destined become reality. The roughly constructed boards are as if doomed to decay and gather dust within one of the numerous Soviet research institutes, eventually becoming a memorial to the last powerful utopian impulse of the twentieth century. Just as knowledge is inaccessible, restricted by rigid censorship and ideological frameworks, so the books in the library cannot be opened and read. The main character in the project, the wooden boy Pinocchio, is concealed within the material of the installation, metaphorically expressing the untapped potential of an entire generation of dreamers. 

Pinocchio’s Library

Portraits of Hothouse Combine Workers, no. 4

Caravan

Ris-Unok

Igor Makarevich and Elena Elagina are one of the key artist couples in Russian art of the past forty years. They began working together in 1990. Their first collaboration was the project Closed Fish Exhibition, which developed and expanded over the twenty years that followed and became a seminal work of Moscow Conceptualism. By the time it was completed in 2015, it included 110 objects, around half of which are now in the collection of the Suermondt‑Ludwig‑Museum in Aachen, Germany. At Garage there are 24 objects, the largest part of the Closed Fish Exhibition in Russia. 
 
 The first showing of the Closed Fish Exhibition took place in 1990 at MANI (Moscow Archive of New Art) Museum in the country house of artist and Collective Actions member Nikolai Panitkov. The project was built around a brochure published in 245 copies for the 1935 exhibition that followed an official trip by Moscow artists to the Volga‑Caspian Gosrybtrest [State Fish Enterprise] in Astrakhan to learn about the Soviet fishing industry. 
 
 According to art historian Ekaterina Degot, the main art form in Moscow Сonceptualism is «the word, turned into an object.» The Closed Fish Exhibition is a brilliant illustration of her thesis: Makarevich and Elagina have reconstructed the 1930s exhibition based on the titles of works in its catalogue (which had no illustrations), literally turning them into objects‑enigmatic riddles assembled largely from found materials.

 Igor Makarevich and Elena Elagina are one of the key artist couples in Russian art of the past forty years. They began working together in 1990. Their first collaboration was the project Closed Fish Exhibition, which developed and expanded over the twenty years that followed and became a seminal work of Moscow Conceptualism. By the time it was completed in 2015, it included 110 objects, around half of which are now in the collection of the Suermondt‑Ludwig‑Museum in Aachen, Germany. At Garage there are 24 objects, the largest part of the Closed Fish Exhibition in Russia. 
 
 The first showing of the Closed Fish Exhibition took place in 1990 at MANI (Moscow Archive of New Art) Museum in the country house of artist and Collective Actions member Nikolai Panitkov. The project was built around a brochure published in 245 copies for the 1935 exhibition that followed an official trip by Moscow artists to the Volga‑Caspian Gosrybtrest [State Fish Enterprise] in Astrakhan to learn about the Soviet fishing industry. 
 
 According to art historian Ekaterina Degot, the main art form in Moscow Сonceptualism is «the word, turned into an object.» The Closed Fish Exhibition is a brilliant illustration of her thesis: Makarevich and Elagina have reconstructed the 1930s exhibition based on the titles of works in its catalogue (which had no illustrations), literally turning them into objects‑enigmatic riddles assembled largely from found materials. 

Radio Motor at Sea

Sketch 2

Anastasia Bogomolova’s works have been exhibited at Garage more than once. The project Bakal (2016), about the inmates of the labor camp in Chelyabinsk Oblast, was shown at the 1st Garage Triennial of Russian Contemporary Art (2017), and the installation Lookbook (2014–2018) was part of the exhibition The Fabric of Felicity (2018). 

 Bogomolova’s interests are broad and varied: from the toponymics of the Urals to botany. The installation Total: 1,118,176 rubles and 4 kopecks to produce 10 art projects in the period 01.11.2017 to 01.11.2022 (of which 6 completed, 1 in progress, 3 unknown status) was commissioned by Garage and explores economics and the financial position of the artist, a theme that until recently was rarely and unenthusiastically discussed but which today is an object of sociological research. Bogomolova arranges her financial autobiography in the form of an accountant’s office where you can find receipts, reports and other sensitive information that is usually concealed. 

 These types of documents are usually analyzed by descendents (as in the case of the illustrated list of purchases created by Michelangelo for his servant on March 18, 1518) or are a means of criticizing various aspects of the capitalist system (Hans Haacke’s works). But Bogomolova uses financial accounting with a different aim in mind. By revealing the “exact sum” to the viewer, she proposes perceiving artistic labor as actual labor and not as an inspired impromptu event with no concrete value.

 Anastasia Bogomolova’s works have been exhibited at Garage more than once. The project Bakal (2016), about the inmates of the labor camp in Chelyabinsk Oblast, was shown at the 1st Garage Triennial of Russian Contemporary Art (2017), and the installation Lookbook (2014–2018) was part of the exhibition The Fabric of Felicity (2018). 

 Bogomolova’s interests are broad and varied: from the toponymics of the Urals to botany. The installation Total: 1,118,176 rubles and 4 kopecks to produce 10 art projects in the period 01.11.2017 to 01.11.2022 (of which 6 completed, 1 in progress, 3 unknown status) was commissioned by Garage and explores economics and the financial position of the artist, a theme that until recently was rarely and unenthusiastically discussed but which today is an object of sociological research. Bogomolova arranges her financial autobiography in the form of an accountant’s office where you can find receipts, reports and other sensitive information that is usually concealed. 

 These types of documents are usually analyzed by descendents (as in the case of the illustrated list of purchases created by Michelangelo for his servant on March 18, 1518) or are a means of criticizing various aspects of the capitalist system (Hans Haacke’s works). But Bogomolova uses financial accounting with a different aim in mind. By revealing the “exact sum” to the viewer, she proposes perceiving artistic labor as actual labor and not as an inspired impromptu event with no concrete value. 

Total: 1,118,176 rubles and 4 kopecks to produce 10 art projects in the period 01.11.2017 to 01.11.2022 (of which 6 completed, 1 in progress, 3 unknown status)

Portraits of Hothouse Combine Workers, no. 2

Cuts

Red Fish Cutting

Still Life with Fish

Étude. Oil

The group Factory of Found Clothes was founded by St. Petersburg artists Olga Egorova (Tsaplya) and Natalia Pershina‑Yakimanskaya (Gluklya) in 1995. They were both interested in clothes as a projection of human existence. That same year their first joint project, the installation  Girlfriends, a poetic and symbolically rich work that explored “reality and eternity,” memory and corporeality, was shown at Gallery 21 in St. Petersburg. A reconstruction of  Girlfriends’ created by the artists at the request of Garage, is on display in open storage.

The central object of the installation is a black dress lying on the floor under glass. It becomes a metaphor for the repose of a functional object, which, having lost its role, is frozen in the eternity between life and death. Placed under glass, the dress looks like a museum piece or a child's  sekretik, a hiding place for memories of a carefree past. The relic, surrounded by artificial flowers, becomes an opposition to the girls’ white dresses soaring like angelic entities.

The vertical part of the installation is based on plastic oppositions—black and white, static and dynamic, heavy and light. In contrast there is a spatial horizontal—a row of bright vintage swimsuits reflected in a large mirror in a massive frame.

In the intersection of the material (horizontal, colored) and the sublime (vertical, monochrome) one can read not only the memory of the body, the experience of reality and liberation from it, but also the universal signs of the earthly and heavenly.

The group Factory of Found Clothes was founded by St. Petersburg artists Olga Egorova (Tsaplya) and Natalia Pershina‑Yakimanskaya (Gluklya) in 1995. They were both interested in clothes as a projection of human existence. That same year their first joint project, the installation  Girlfriends, a poetic and symbolically rich work that explored “reality and eternity,” memory and corporeality, was shown at Gallery 21 in St. Petersburg. A reconstruction of  Girlfriends’ created by the artists at the request of Garage, is on display in open storage.

The central object of the installation is a black dress lying on the floor under glass. It becomes a metaphor for the repose of a functional object, which, having lost its role, is frozen in the eternity between life and death. Placed under glass, the dress looks like a museum piece or a child's  sekretik, a hiding place for memories of a carefree past. The relic, surrounded by artificial flowers, becomes an opposition to the girls’ white dresses soaring like angelic entities.

The vertical part of the installation is based on plastic oppositions—black and white, static and dynamic, heavy and light. In contrast there is a spatial horizontal—a row of bright vintage swimsuits reflected in a large mirror in a massive frame.

In the intersection of the material (horizontal, colored) and the sublime (vertical, monochrome) one can read not only the memory of the body, the experience of reality and liberation from it, but also the universal signs of the earthly and heavenly.

Girlfriends

Portrait of a Helmsman

An important theme in Kristina Pashkova’s work is the connection between weaving and the history of computing. It can be traced in her textiles, which are expanded through visual poetry, video, and sound. 

 The installation The Eye of the Mistress (the title refers to Italian philosopher Matteo Pasquinelli’s book The Eye of the Master about the sociology of AI) consists of jacquard pieces, video projections, a soundscape, and visual poetry. Pashkova wove the jacquard pieces on a TC2 semi‑automatic digital jacquard loom, which combines elements of digital and hand weaving. 

 The labor‑intensive process of threading the loom and developing a digital sketch rhymes with the history of cybernetics as told by Sadie Plant in her text The Future Looms: Weaving Women and Cybernetics . Punched cards‑a tool that allows the transfer of information and determined the way binary code works in digital technology‑were used to create ornaments in looms, and Plant's subject, Ada Lovelace, was the first programmer to use them in a computing machine project. Pashkova expands the habitual patriarchal narrative around the history of technology through the inclusion of the perspective of the “mistress,” thus supporting a feminist critique of media and technology which does not separate digital environments from manual labor and corporeality. Together they create complex economies of attention and violence. 

 For example, in her work Enemy target , she links algorithms of digital violence (protocols of automated identity recognition and surveillance, systems of polarization of society, and so on) with the practice of weaving. In one jacquard piece she reproduces a video‑game code describing the work of a turret that identifies an enemy target on the battlefield. 

 In her video Pashkova combines the cyclical nature of machine code and weaving and the laboriousness and ambiguity of this practice, with her visual poetry, which is also based on repetition.

 An important theme in Kristina Pashkova’s work is the connection between weaving and the history of computing. It can be traced in her textiles, which are expanded through visual poetry, video, and sound.  

 The installation  The Eye of the Mistress  (the title refers to Italian philosopher Matteo Pasquinelli’s book  The Eye of the Master  about the sociology of AI) consists of jacquard pieces, video projections, a soundscape, and visual poetry. Pashkova wove the jacquard pieces on a TC2 semi‑automatic digital jacquard loom, which combines elements of digital and hand weaving.  

 The labor‑intensive process of threading the loom and developing a digital sketch rhymes with the history of cybernetics as told by Sadie Plant in her text  The Future Looms: Weaving Women and Cybernetics . Punched cards‑a tool that allows the transfer of information and determined the way binary code works in digital technology‑were used to create ornaments in looms, and Plant's subject, Ada Lovelace, was the first programmer to use them in a computing machine project. Pashkova expands the habitual patriarchal narrative around the history of technology through the inclusion of the perspective of the “mistress,” thus supporting a feminist critique of media and technology which does not separate digital environments from manual labor and corporeality. Together they create complex economies of attention and violence.  

 For example, in her work  Enemy target , she links algorithms of digital violence (protocols of automated identity recognition and surveillance, systems of polarization of society, and so on) with the practice of weaving. In one jacquard piece she reproduces a video‑game code describing the work of a turret that identifies an enemy target on the battlefield.  

 In her video Pashkova combines the cyclical nature of machine code and weaving and the laboriousness and ambiguity of this practice, with her visual poetry, which is also based on repetition. 

The Eye of the Mistress

Sturgeons

Kazan artist Ilgizar Khasanov has been a key figure in the art scene of his city for several decades. Khasanov works with the Soviet material legacy, revisiting it in a lyrical way. Collecting various rare and unusual everyday objects from the Soviet period and combining them into installations, he does not aim to reproduce the spirit of the era but wishes to reveal through objects the personal stories of their anonymous owners. In a way, these often very ordinary and unassuming objects are themselves animated and reveal their independent life in the gap between the aesthetics of the Soviet era and individual human destinies.

 The installation Diary of an Unknown Person (1956–1965) is based on the diary of a Soviet citizen purchased at a flea market. The diary covers the years from 1956 to 1965, with entries written not daily but selectively. Most entries consist of monotonous descriptions of unremarkable events that happened during the day. Khasanov has complemented this striking document of the early Khrushchev Thaw period with authentic objects of the time: a stool, a worn jacket, a cigarette, an inkwell, and a still life featuring a modest lunch. These objects create an illusion of the anonymous protagonist being present in the room and reconstruct fragments of their everyday life, while the glass corridor space with the absurd signs for the entrance and exit refers, according to the artist, to images of a sarcophagus or a fairy‑tale coffin.

 Kazan artist Ilgizar Khasanov has been a key figure in the art scene of his city for several decades. Khasanov works with the Soviet material legacy, revisiting it in a lyrical way. Collecting various rare and unusual everyday objects from the Soviet period and combining them into installations, he does not aim to reproduce the spirit of the era but wishes to reveal through objects the personal stories of their anonymous owners. In a way, these often very ordinary and unassuming objects are themselves animated and reveal their independent life in the gap between the aesthetics of the Soviet era and individual human destinies.

 The installation Diary of an Unknown Person (1956–1965) is based on the diary of a Soviet citizen purchased at a flea market. The diary covers the years from 1956 to 1965, with entries written not daily but selectively. Most entries consist of monotonous descriptions of unremarkable events that happened during the day. Khasanov has complemented this striking document of the early Khrushchev Thaw period with authentic objects of the time: a stool, a worn jacket, a cigarette, an inkwell, and a still life featuring a modest lunch. These objects create an illusion of the anonymous protagonist being present in the room and reconstruct fragments of their everyday life, while the glass corridor space with the absurd signs for the entrance and exit refers, according to the artist, to images of a sarcophagus or a fairy‑tale coffin. 

Diary of an Unknown Person (1956–1965)

Ris-Unok. Lead Pencil

Deck

Unok

Seiners

Sketch 1

Alexei Shulgin is a pioneer of net art and early computer art. His key work 386 DX was “the world’s first cyberpunk band, a singing computer based on the Intel 386 DX microprocessor, which became available in 1985 and by the time of the making of the work was considered outdated.
 
The members of the band are the components of a system unit: a 40 MHz chip, 8 Mb of RAM, a 40-Mb hard drive, a Creative Soundblaster 16 sound card, and the operating system Windows 3.1. 
 
To create the vocals, Shulgin used existing MIDI files and manually programmed the musical notation using TextAssist text‑to‑speech software to create the effect of real singing, producing huge text files. Recording an album this way took about a year. 
 
The band has played in Russia, Europe, and the USA, some¬times as a street performer in museums, metro stations or outside in the rain, hiding under an awkward umbrella, and took part in live audiovisual concerts with the artist.
 
In creating such performative situations, Shulgin is com‑menting on the nature of algorithmic (and artistic) labor, the autonomy of computing systems, the problem of obsolescence in technology, and the reproduction of images (and sounds) in popular culture. These questions remain relevant today, when neural‑network‑based generators imitate human creativity, making various communities‑from developers and politicians to creative industries and artists- revisit questions of authorship and labor ethics.

 Alexei Shulgin is a pioneer of net art and early computer art. His key work 386 DX was “the world’s first cyberpunk band, a singing computer based on the Intel 386 DX microprocessor, which became available in 1985 and by the time of the making of the work was considered outdated.
 
The members of the band are the components of a system unit: a 40 MHz chip, 8 Mb of RAM, a 40-Mb hard drive, a Creative Soundblaster 16 sound card, and the operating system Windows 3.1. 
 
To create the vocals, Shulgin used existing MIDI files and manually programmed the musical notation using TextAssist text‑to‑speech software to create the effect of real singing, producing huge text files. Recording an album this way took about a year. 
 
The band has played in Russia, Europe, and the USA, some¬times as a street performer in museums, metro stations or outside in the rain, hiding under an awkward umbrella, and took part in live audiovisual concerts with the artist.
 
In creating such performative situations, Shulgin is com‑menting on the nature of algorithmic (and artistic) labor, the autonomy of computing systems, the problem of obsolescence in technology, and the reproduction of images (and sounds) in popular culture. These questions remain relevant today, when neural‑network‑based generators imitate human creativity, making various communities‑from developers and politicians to creative industries and artists- revisit questions of authorship and labor ethics.

Computer. 386DX

Portraits of Hothouse Combine Workers, no. 3

Fishing Season (version)

Portraits of Hothouse Combine Workers, no. 1

1. Открытый доступ

Мастер

Blue Soup

Factory of Found Clothes

Elena Elagina (1949–2022) was born in Moscow and studied in the Philology Faculty of Moscow Pedagogical Institute. 

 Igor Makarevich was born in 1943 in Trialeti (Georgian SSR). He studied in the Art Faculty of the All‑Union State Cinematography Institute (VGIK). 

 From the late 1970s they were involved with the group Collective Actions. The project Closed Fish Exhibition (1990) marked the beginning of their working together. Selected solo exhibitions: Within the Limits of the Beautiful, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow (2005); In Situ , Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (2009); Countdown , Moscow Museum of Modern Art (2020). They took part in the 53rd (main project, 2009) and 54th Venice Biennales (Russian Pavilion, as part of the exhibition Empty Zones. Andrei Monastyrski and Collective Actions, 2011). They are winners of the Innovation Prize in the nomination Contribution to the Development of Contemporary Art (2012) and the Moscow Prize in the nomination Visual Art and Architecture (2021).

Igor Makarevich and Elena Elagina 

Dobrov Alexey

Alexei Shulgin was born in Moscow. He graduated in Cybernetics of Metallurgical Processes from Moscow State Institute of Steel and Alloys. He is the founder of the Immediate Photography Group (1987). Beginning in 1997, he was one of the first people in Russian making Internet art. In 1998, he founded the cyberpunk rock group 386 DX. In 2004, together with Aristarkh Chernyshev, he created the project Electroboutique. Selected solo exhibitions: Televisions, XL Gallery, Moscow (1994); Beauty Inside, XL Gallery, Moscow (2005); Montage, Moscow House of Photography (2002); KRITI‑POP (with Aristarkh Chernyshev), Moscow Museum of Modern Art (2008). Selected group exhibitions: I Believe!, Winzavod Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow (2007); Futurology, Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture, Moscow (2010); 4th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (as part of the group Electroboutique), ARTPLAY Design Center, Moscow (2014). He is a winner of the Kandinsky Prize in the nomination Media Art. Project of the Year (with Aristarkh Chernyshev, 2009).

Shulgin Aleksey

Anastasia Bogomolova was born in Qostanay (Kazakh SSR). Selected solo exhibitions: Dacha/Garden, Moscow Museum of Modern Art (2014); Lookbook, Nizhny Tagil City Museum of Visual Arts, Chelyabinsk State Museum of Visual Arts (2016–2018); Сompartment Height, OkNo Gallerym Chelyabinsk (2023). Selected group exhibitions: 1st Garage Triennial of Russian Contemporary Art, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2017); The Fabric of Felicity, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2018); Taming the Void. Fifty Years of Contemporary Art in the Urals, National Center for Contemporary Arts, Moscow, Arsenal, Nizhny Novgorod, Ploshchad Mira Museum Center, Krasnoyarsk (2017–2018); Art and Life in Critical Zones, Konstmuseet i Norr, Kiruna, Sweden (2024).

Bogomolova Anastasia

Pershina‑Yakimanskaya Nataliya (Gluklya)

Egorova Olga (Tsaplya)

Peter Belyi was born in Leningrad. From 1990 to 1992, he studied at Leningrad Mukhina Higher Industrial and Art College. In 2000, he completed his Master’s degree at Camberwell School of Art. In 2009, he founded the gallery Lyuda. He is a member of the St. Petersburg Union of Artists. He is a recipient of the Sergey Kuryokhin Prize in the nomination Best Work of Visual Art (2009) and the Innovation Prize in the nomination Curatorial Project (with Alexander Terebenin, 2015).

Belyi Peter

Lobanov Aleksandr

Born in Novomoskovsk. She graduated from the Free Studios at Moscow Museum of Modern
Art (2021) and the Joseph Backstein Institute of Contemporary Art (2022). She took part in
WHW Akademija (Zagreb, 2022), an independent project by the curatorial group WHW, and
a residency at Baltic Art Center (Gotland, Sweden, 2023). She is a resident of the program
ColLab, where she weaves on a TS2 semi‑automatic Jacquard loom. She is the author of the
Telegram channel Shvami narushu, which covers textile artists.

Pashkova Kristina

Lebedev Daniil

Ilgizar Khasanov was born in Kazan. He graduated from the Art Department of Kazan Theater College. He is the co‑founder of Smena Center for Contemporary Culture (Kazan, 2013). His solo exhibitions have taken place at the House of Scientists, Moscow (1991), Kazan National Cultural Center (1995), Central House of Artists, Moscow (1998), Russian Cultural Center, Prague (2000), Smena Center for Contemporary Culture, Kazan (2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2023), and other venues. Selected group exhibitions: Another Generation, Central House of Artists, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod State Art Museum (1993); Fly I, New Gallery, Samara (2008); Traditions and Innovation, Manege Central Exhibition Hall, Moscow (2009); Territory of the Absurd, M&M Gallery, Kazan (2010; 1st Garage Triennial of Russian Contemporary Art, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2017); Dreams of Milk, Voznesensky Center, Moscow (2022). He is a member of the Union of Artists of Russia (1996) and the Franz Kafka Society (Prague).

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