Project 35: The Last Act

Date

Hours

11:00–22:00

Place

Garage Auditorium

Project 35: The Last Act is an unprecedented exhibition of single-channel video works that reveals today’s global connectivity through art. It is the result of an extensive five-year project by Independent Curators International (ICI), which exclusively culminates at Garage.

Project 35: The Last Act presents 70 video works from artists living and working all over the world—from Zimbabwe and Guatemala to Japan, from the USA and New Zealand to Kyrgyzstan, that have been selected by 70 leading curators who are part of ICI’s extensive network, including, Chus Martinez, Viktor Misiano, Hou Hanru, and Hans Ulrich Obrist. Since 2010, different versions of the exhibition have been presented in over 50 institutions around the world. As the finale, this is the first time they will be screened together, providing a unique, global overview of video art now.

Showcasing many leading artists in Russia for the first time, the exhibition is also unusual for its “cinema” style presentation in Garage’s new auditorium. Each week there is a new, daily program of video works, which are each especially selected for audiences by eleven key creative people in Moscow and Saint-Petersburg, such as Olga Chernishova (artist), Anton Belov (Garage Director), and Elena Yushina (independent curator), based on their personal interests and tastes. Visitors can watch for half an hour, an hour, or four hours—to see the “top picks” that each selector has made and why they liked them—and can keep coming back to see more works from more selectors over the winter months, all through January 2016. In this way the exhibition offers a flexible viewing opportunity for visitors to enjoy on their own time.

Project 35 began as the first international survey of what curators thought was the most interesting video art happening around the world since the new millennium, further revealing the ways in which artists are wanting to communicate today. To begin, 35 international curators selected 35 video works that ranged from reinterpretations of traditional philosophical propositions, to uprisings and protests in South Africa and emerging youth culture in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, to environmental exploitation in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Then, in 2012, 35 new curators selected 35 new videos works, expanding the reach of the project to reflect the continued rise of video art as an important medium for artists. Together, the works reveal the diversity of approaches practitioners are taking to the medium, using various animation techniques, as well as borrowing from the language of cinema, performance, and even YouTube, to produce work that weaves between documentary and fiction formats.

The weekly screening program that takes place in the Garage Auditorium has been prepared in collaboration with Russian artists (Olga Chernyshova, Evgeny Granilshikov), film critics (Alexey Artamonov, Boris Nelepo), journalists (Maria Kravtsova), art critics (Alexander Evangeli), curators (Elena Yushina, Aperto gallery; Maya Kuzina, Documentary film center; Andrey Misiano, Garage) directors (Anton Belov, Garage) and theater director who will choose their personal favourites from the wide range of works.

Organized by Andrey Misiano, Garage Assistant Curator

ARTISTS

Vyacheslav Akhunov, Jonathas de Andrade, Meris Angioletti, Alexander Apóstol, Marwa Arsanios, Vartan Avakian, Azorro Group, Zbyněk Baladrán, Sammy Baloji, Yason Banal, Guy Ben-Ner, Michael Blum and Damir Nikšić, Deanna Bowen, Pavel Braila, Andrea Büttner, Robert Cauble, Aslı Çavuşoğlu, Park Chan-Kyong, Chen Chieh-jen, Chto delat/What is to be done?, Josef Dabernig, Elena Damiani, Shezad Dawood, Manon de Boer, Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys, Angela Detanico, Annika Eriksson, Kota Ezawa, Antanas Gerlikas, Tamar Guimarães, Dan Halter, Annemarie Jacir, Ranbir Kaleka, Beryl Korot, Nestor Kruger, Rafael Lain, Lars Laumann, Aníbal López, Reynier Leyva Novo, Basim Magdy, Cinthia Marcelle, Bradley McCullum & Jacqueline Tarry, Anja Medved, Tracey Moffatt, Ivana Müller, Tuan Andrew Nguyen, Phu Nam Thuc Ha, Ho Tzu Nyen, Ahmet Ögüt, Agnieszka Polska, Jenny Perlin, Daniela Paes Leao, Elodie Pong, The Propeller Group, Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz, Sara Ramo, Tracey Rose, Sona Safaei, Edwin Sánchez, Heino Schmid, Michael Stevenson, Stephen Sutcliffe, Yukihiro Taguchi, Prilla Tania, Alexander Ugay, Ulla Von Brandenburg, Wok the Rock, Zhou Xiaohu, Sun Xun, Jin-me Yoon, Dale Yudelman, Helen Zeru, Chen Zhou

CURATORS

Mai Abu ElDahab, Leeza Ahmady, Magalí Arriola, Meskerem Assegued, Ruth Auerbach, Daina Augaitis, Defne Ayas, Lars Bang Larsen, Regine Basha, Zoe Butt, Yane Calovski, María del Carmen Carrión, Valerie Cassel-Oliver, Rosina Cazali, Amy Cheng, Ana Paula Cohen, Stuart Comer, Veronica Cordeiro, Christopher Cozier, Joselina Cruz, Sergio Edelsztein, Rifky Effendy, Özge Ersoy, Charles Esche, N’Goné Fall, Lauri Firstenberg, Amirali Ghasemi, Alexie Glass-Kantor, Julieta González, Vít Havránek, Hou Hanru, Anthony Huberman, Virginija Januskeviciute, Abdellah Karroum, Mami Kataoka, Sunjung Kim, Pablo León de la Barra, Constance M Lewallen, Maria Lind, Lu Jie, Raimundas Malasauskas, Francesco Manacorda, Chus Martínez, Yandro Miralles, Viktor Misiano, Srimoyee Mitra, David Moos, Nat Muller, Deeksha Nath, Simon Njami, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Sharmini Pereira, Jack Persekian, Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez, Kathrin Rhomberg, José Roca, Bisi Silva, Franklin Sirmans, Kathryn Smith, Susan Sollins, Mats Stjernstedt, David Teh, Philip Tinari, Christine Tohme, Mirjam Varadinis, Raluca Voinea, Jochen Volz, WHW, Weng Choy Lee, Adnan Yildiz

ABOUT ICI

Independent Curators International (ICI) produces exhibitions, events, publications, research and training opportunities for curators and diverse audiences around the world. Established in 1975 and headquartered in New York, ICI is a hub that connects emerging and established curators, artists, and art spaces, forging international networks and generating new forms of collaboration. As a result the organization provides access to the people and practices that are key to current developments in the field, inspiring fresh ways of seeing and contextualizing contemporary art.

Project 35: The Last Act is the final presentation of the exhibitions Project 35: Volume 1 and Project 35: Volume 2. The initiative recalls the founding intentions of ICI, which in 1975, developed a seminal survey of video art titled Video Art USA for the São Paulo Biennial as its first exhibition, presenting early works by artists that included Vito Acconci, Bruce Nauman, Nam June Paik, Keith Sonnier, Steina Vasulka, and Bill Viola among others. These artists were pioneers working in a medium that was just beginning to gain traction in the field of contemporary art, and ICI proved to be an early and committed proponent of it. The international scope of ICI was clearly indicated in this first exhibition, which was then presented in four more countries across Latin America. With Project 35 ICI recalled this first show and reflected on current art practice by drawing from its extensive international network of curators to organize a new, evolving exhibition of international video art, and support new collaborations between curators, artists and exhibitions spaces on national and international platforms.

Project 35 was made possible, in part, by grants from the The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Cowles Charitable Trust, Foundation for Contemporary Art, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, Robert Lehman Foundation, and the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation; the ICI Board of Trustees; and donors to ICI's Access Fund.