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Programme

Lectures

(neo)surrealism

This year, the Cosmoscow Lecture program is supervised by Daria Pyrkina, a candidate of art history, curator, researcher, teacher of art history and curatorial practices, academic director of the program “Curator Practices in Contemporary Art” at the School of Design of the National Research University Higher School of Economics. The main theme of this year's educational program is the surrealist tradition and its interpretation in modern art and reality. Visitors will be able to attend lectures on the origins of surrealism, discussions about the immersive exhibition practices of the surrealists, and conversations with artists and art historians about the surrealist tradition and its relevance today.

October 2024 marks the 100th anniversary of the surrealist movement. Emerging in the period between the two world wars, it fully reflected its era, when rationalism and orderliness were replaced by an alarming worldview, a sense of the absurd and uncontrollability of life situations, rooted in the Dadaist experiences of the First World War. Interest in the unconscious, fascination with irrationalism and illogicality manifested themselves in poetry, painting, photography, cinema and other forms of art.

The situation in the world today is very consonant with the sentiments of a hundred years ago. The trends towards exploring the unconscious, already present in the art of the second half of the 2010s, were especially intensified by the coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent dramatic events on the world stage. The purism of neo-conceptualism and the economy of artistic means of the “new boring” are being replaced by artists’ fascination with mysticism, rituals, working with memory and trauma, fear and anxiety. The works take on installation and performative forms, and the aspirations for theatricalization are becoming increasingly widespread.

2 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.

Discussion "Surrealism – forever"
Today - just like a hundred years ago, when the surrealist movement arose - in the artistic world there are current trends towards a fascination with the unconscious, an increase in the role of imagination and various “fruits of fantasy” - only now often created using new technical means, unknown in the 1920s. Media-dramatic events in (a) reality provoke interest in parallel dimensions and paranormality, and events in the “public spectacle” force the creation of increasingly impressive, exciting, “lush” and historical statements. The situation in the modern artistic process and the reincarnation of surrealist strategies will be discussed by artists, curators and art historians.
3:30 p.m. - 5 p.m.

Public talk “Our life in art: the influence of the century and signs of the times”
Technological capabilities, horizontal connections, 24/7 communication and the need to do everything at once: our age gives a lot, but also demands a lot in return. We will meet with artists, curators and gallerists to discuss the signs of the times and their impact on contemporary art.
5 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.

Discussion “Surrealism and surrealisms: a cinematic view”
It is traditionally believed that in the history of cinema there were few actual surrealist films, and they were all filmed in the 1920s. But conversations about the surreal in the cinema of subsequent times have not ceased to this day. Film and animation historians reflect on historical film surrealism and surrealism in cinema after surrealism.
6:30 p.m. - 8 p.m.

Film classics of surrealism: attending a special seminar for specialists in cinema and contemporary music at the HSE School of Design
Classics of surreal cinema with comments from the curators of the “Screen Arts” direction, accompanied by electroacoustic music from the artists of the “Sound Art and Sound Design” direction of the Higher School of Economics Georgy Ibragimov and Alexander Malevich.