5th Moscow International Biennale for Young Art
Deep Inside
1 July – 10 August 2016
Curator: Nadim Samman

Theme

Nadim Samman has chosen the title Deep Inside to initiate the discussion of the way new generation of artists explore the structure of the modern global world and to show how they are recording and remodeling the here and now:

“Everyday, millions of people have out-of-body-experiences, enabled by avatars on social networks and online game worlds. At the same time, Google Earth and air travel have made us accustomed to the “God’s eye view” — pictures from satellites, in orbit, beyond the boundaries of gravity. In the face of climate change, a global economy in crisis, social instability and the moral consequences of the information revolution, the poetics of escape is becoming ever more seductive. Lust for an absolute outside powers fantasies of emigration to untouched beaches and even exotic plans for the colonization of Mars. But what if these dreams are traps and escape? What if the ticket price is too high? Every rocket launch scorches the earth. The Tabula rasa, the “clean slate”, is the fruit of modernist vanity. Its gleaming surface has too long obscured the depth of fractals and the fact that, beyond the canvas or a spreadsheet, there is no square one. Can’t we imagine a radical inside? For every evacuation plan we must create a thousand reconceptions of home — renovation of the spaces that we inhabit – conceptual and material hacks.”

                                   -Nadim Samman

Curator

Nadim Samman is an independent curator, art historian and teacher. He read Philosophy at University College London before completing a doctorate in art history at the Courtauld Institute of Art. In 2012 he curated the 4th Marrakech Biennale with Carson Chan. Projects in 2014 include Antarctopia: The Antarctic Pavilion, 14th Venice Biennale of Architecture, and Treasure of Lima: A Buried Exhibition, a unique site-specific exhibition on the remote Pacific island of Isla del Coco. Nadim is co-director of Import Projects, editor of Near East Magazine and previously curator at Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (TBA21).

Framework

Moscow International Biennale for Young Art has undergone a number of changes. The expert committee has reviewed the rules of the biennale, introduced the position of biennale commissioner, to which Ekaterina Kibovskaya has been invited:

“We are holding the fifth biennale in a new format. Before our curators were famous international experts, but this time we have decided to take a risk and invite as many young professionals to the team as possible. The biennale has an advisory board, this summer we announced a closed international competition for curators under the age of 35. From more than twenty concepts that were sent, the experts chose one. We have an interesting new venue for the main project in a historical building. Along with this the biennale will have a parallel educational program and two strategic projects, which will be held at the National Centre for Contemporary Arts and Moscow Museum of Modern Art. We will select the curators for these projects based on a call for proposals that will open on the biennale’s site at the same time that artists’ applications to participate in the main project will be accepted.”