No Translations
#1 «Everyday heroism»
29 April – 3 May, 2010
Contemporary art, music, dance
В рамках этого экспериментального проекта проведены 4 фестиваля, посвященных возможным способам взаимодействия художников, имеющих различную художественную платформу и принадлежащим к разным жанрам искусства.
Organizer
International Culture Project
«Art-Residence»
Curators
Konstantin Grouss, Timofey Сaraffa-Сorbut, Fyodor Amirov
The festival presents a diversity of the languages of art. Its form of presentation is an exhibition of visual art and media art objects, along with a series of dance performances and music concerts, taking place over the course of 5 days. All artistic objects and performances are created specifically for the festival, representing as vividly as possible the language of contemporary art.
Visual art
Max Gluhov / Alina Gutkina / Arseny Jiliaev / Konstantin Zvezdochetov / Andrey Bartenev / Timofey Caraffa-Korbut / Egor Koshelev / Eugenia Kuznetsova / Andrew Kuz'kin / Oleg Kulik / Alexander Lysov / Anatoly Osmolovsky / Kirill Chelushkin / Alexander Povzner / Ilya Trushevsky / Timofey Smirnov / Vasily Tsereteli / Elena Pot’eva / Oblako / Ustina Yakovleva / Ksenia Sorokina / Maxim Smirennomudrensky / MC Bizon Ivan Shabanov / Sergey Rulyakov / Catherine Borsuk / AES + F / Special project NODE 1 - Yongwoo Cho (USA) / Cedric Philippe (France) / Oleg Arnautov / Irina Birger (Netherlands) / Rino Larsen (Norway) / David Leibowitz (USA)
Dance, performance, media
Theodore Tezhik / Tatiana Mamedov / ZERO Dance Gallery - Konstantin Grouss, Lika Shevchenko, Tatiana Fateeva / Boroditsky Denis’s Dance Company, BDDC / Po.VSTanze Dance Company
Music
Fedor Amirov, Andrew Suchilin Anton Efimov, Konstantin Mochalov, Saxophone Quartet of Andrey Kravchenko, Project Undusk of Alexey Pavlenko, Mikhail Plotnikov, Olesya Yaroshenko, Vasily Tsirin, Nikita Tikhonov
Concept
Communication today is the primary gateway into the sphere of public interest, and in the pursuit of "fame," the deeper foundations of an artist's life and work have long been forgotten. This problem has begun to lodge itself so deeply in the mind that it has become necessary to analyze the process itself — and the best analysis is a collision of things and concepts that might otherwise never meet.
In this connection, we would like to propose the theme of the interaction of languages — languages not only in the linguistic sense, but languages of art, at whose intersection it may become possible to encounter the deepest aspects of existence.
In the project " ... " – no translations, we are interested in the linguistics of art, in certain difficulties of translating from one language into another, in their intersections and parallels — and also in the everyday heroism of their creators. In other words:
"The unison sounding of the languages of art was once overcome by the avant-garde, which called into question the centuries-old apologia for synthesis and established, as a new form of interaction, the poetics of dialogue — the co-being of a multitude of creative intuitions. Since then, interspecific separation has only intensified, and speech norms have come to unite an ever narrower circle of names. Contemporary cultural space is the extreme point of this isolation: the number of languages within it is equal to the number of authors. The measure of success has become an individual lexicon that refutes all other modes of utterance. And the brighter this lexicon, the greater the semantic density carried by the authorial gesture, the harder the path toward understanding it becomes. Strategies of autonomy compel the artist into a constant struggle — to erect obstacles and then overcome them — that very everyday heroism on the border between hermeticism and communication.
Orienting the viewer within this territory has ceased to be a matter of sensory play, turning instead into an overwhelming intellectual puzzle that generates random numbers. The summation of chaotic signals does not yield a whole; amid the succession of texts, the very sense of the space of art is lost. Deciphering these codes becomes possible only through the deliberate collision of forms, genres, objects, and concepts that exist 'on different planes' — through the destruction of their sterile separateness by forcing them into intersection. Removing guild boundaries and modeling a situation of dialogue within the community, the project reconstructs a broad cultural field, drawing both artist and viewer into its bounds and mapping out paths for their communication. Within this dissonant juxtaposition — this many-voiced forum of messages — the keys crystallize for grasping and guessing at private codes through their polyphonic unity."
Tatyana Malova.
Translations #1 festival. Konstantin Grouss, Inverview to TV Tsentr (TVC). May, 3, 2010.
[TVC channel]
Konstantin, tell us about today's project. What kind of project is it? How long have you been preparing for it?
[Konstantin Grouss]
This is the first part of the project. We intend to continue it. The project itself is dedicated to the collision of various concepts in art, various genres of music, visual art, dance.
We plan to give artists the opportunity to meet at the same time, in the same space, and give the audience the opportunity to get a serious aesthetic charge from what they see.
[TVC channel]
Tell us, how did you come up with this idea?
[Konstantin Grouss]
This idea came to me when I was at an interesting creative meeting in Dublin, Ireland, which was held by the Performance Corporation. We had a meeting, and then I had an idea, because there was some kind of creative connection, also very different in style, in manner of the artist. It was two or three years ago.
Since then, we began to work gradually on this idea, keeping it in mind. And only after some time, look, it begins to sprout and pour into some interesting space, which, by the way, helps us. And the whole atmosphere here, the walls, they somehow meet us with joy.
[TVC channel]
It's very interesting here, you know, this is not the topic of the interview, but even these stained-glass windows are very interesting.
[Konstantin Grouss]
Yes, it was created by Anatoliy Vasiliev.
[TVC channel]
It was specially created?
[Konstantin Grouss]
It was created for his theatre. The room itself was created by Anatoliy Vasiliev a long time ago. It functioned as "School of Dramatic Art", and then it has already moved to today's state.
[TVC channel]
In your opinion, is there a lot of talented artists in Russia today who bring something new to art? Is there anything to say about it?
[Konstantin Grouss]
It seems to me that there were always a lot of talented people at all times, and now it is a new generation. And even for those artists who are already known, it seems to me that they are getting a new charge of energy now. Because time itself, maybe, somehow charges people, maybe something else is happening to us.
And what I see now, what I feel now is some kind of new wave that is coming, a new wave of ideas, maybe even a new breath in old ideas.
[TVC channel]
Tell me, what are you waiting for from this project? What are your expectations? And what's next?
Today, as you said, is the first such boom. What's next?
[Konstantin Grouss]
Next? Next, we have a series of prepared international projects. The first will be between Moscow and Berlin.
That is, we have a number of international artists who live in Berlin. And it's not necessarily Germans, these are artists from all countries, their location is now in Berlin. And we are doing such an international project between Moscow and Berlin.
And this is the first series of international projects. Although this project is already international. That is, one of the sub-projects of No Translations, is now such an exhibition of Node-1.
That is, it is curated by Alexander Lysov and gathers artists, independent artists, through the Internet. That is, they send their works from all over the world, and we exhibit them here today. You can see this project in the Second studio and see these artists, including those from Korea, from America, from Russia.
In general, this is an interesting project that we also plan to develop within the framework of the Art Residence.
[TVC channel]
The last question, it's such a tricky one. In your opinion, modern art, the form of which is presented to you, is it understandable to the general public, or is it still for thinkers, for thinking people, for creative people?
[Konstantin Grouss]
It seems to me that we named our project in the Art-Residence No Translations not by chance. In my opinion, what we present is often not needed in translation. Not from one language to another, that is, I mean the languages of artists, not from the language of artists to the language of those who look at them.
It is enough to just feel, perceive, see, open your eyes, ears, and yourself, and be here. Besides, the atmosphere that we create has this. We plan to juxtapose different genres.
It is also aimed at giving people a certain ease of perception, and to see one genre through another, to see different works from a a neighbouring perspective.