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.
Discussion “Surrealism. Museum practices"
In the year of the 100th anniversary of one of the most important phenomena in the art of the twentieth century, the Volga-Vyatka branch of the Pushkin Museum named after. A.S. Pushkin, named "Museum of the Year" by Cosmoscow, turned its stand at the fair into a playing field. Play, a well-known practice of the surrealists, was at the same time for them both a form of playful leisure and a testing ground for ideas. Therefore, the form of the discussion held by the Volga-Vyatka branch of the Pushkin Museum named after. A.S. Pushkin as part of the fair's lecture hall, one of the favorite gaming techniques of surrealism was chosen: a questionnaire. The expert panelists will predictably give different answers to the same, but hopefully unexpected, questions about their personal experiences working in an art museum. Among the questions there will be real questions from the surrealist questionnaires.
Discussion “Surrealism as a community”
The discussion is devoted to various forms of collectivity in the artistic environment. The desire of artists to unite and form groups, communities, and partnerships, which emerged at the beginning of the twentieth century, was enshrined in the practices of the surrealists as an integral component of the artistic process. Do artists in Russia today have a need to “be together”? Are such communities held together by manifestos and programmatic texts, or are they built on other principles? What ensures the sustainability of these social structures?
Discussion "The Long Game". Mythology of the current and eternal in art
The art section of the autumn issue of Snob magazine is dedicated to the study of the space between the momentary and the eternal in the context of art and culture. The discussion, which develops the stated theme, will address questions about what makes the works of artists relevant not only in the current moment, but also for future generations, what circumstances influence the perception of art in the long term, and what makes up the historical value of a particular work of art.
Lecture by Irina Kulik “Dreams for implantation”
This year marks one hundred years since the poet André Breton published the First Manifesto of Surrealism and launched one of the most influential and controversial movements of modernism. Its participants were rebels who called for the use of surrealism in the service of the revolution - and new conservatives converted to the avant-garde art of figurative painting, intellectuals inspired by the ideas of Freud and exploring the workings of the unconscious - and authors sensitive to the charm of popular culture and masterfully able to collaborate with it. And although the main achievements of the surrealists remained at the beginning of the last century, today the imagery and practice of surrealism are returning again - this time in art created with the help of machine unconscious AI.
Report* on the topic: "NONSNS painting without borders"
*Attention! This is not a report - this is a performance!
At Cosmoscow 2024, as part of a city tour, the NONSNS art group will present to your attention an extended report* with an interactive effect, dedicated to the “NONSNS painting without borders” project and going beyond it.
