In his lecture, artist and curator Arseny Zhilyaev will talk about the transformation of his research interests and the formation of his creative method, through the prism of personal biography.
The artist’s practice started in Moscow in the early 2000s, when he founded the fictional Institute of Border Investigations, whose activity included projects deriving from the mutual practice of the “Voronezh wave” artists, such as Ivan Gorshkov, Nikolay Alekseev, and Ilya Dolgov. That period was a time of active institutionalization and the development of commercially successful art projects. The art of Arseny Zhilyaev, on the contrary, suggested an alternative approach in the form of self-organization and artistic control over the exhibition context.
Parallel to that, Zhilyaev’s works began politicization. By appropriating the figural language of the historic avant-garde, he reflects on alternate ways for his artistic growth, with the resulting projects of this creative pursuit coming into being in the late 2000s and early 2010s: in these works, Zhilyaev starts using exhibitions and museums as his mediums. The next stage of his career is marked by work on a series of projects devoted to contemplation focusing on the role of art and the philosophy of Russian cosmism. During his talk, Arseny Zhilyaev will reveal more about the achievements of his theoretical and practical research in this field.
