7th Moscow International Biennale of Contemporary Art: Clouds⇄Forests

Curator: Yuko Hasegawa (Japan)
Curatorial assistant: Seiha Kurosawa (Japan)
Participants of the main project: 52 artists from 25 countries
Parallel programme: 69 projects by 49 Moscow institutions

The main project of the 7th Moscow International Biennale of Contemporary Art Clouds⇄Forests will take place in New Tretyakov Gallery (The State Tretyakov Gallery, 10, Krymsky Val, Moscow) from September 19, 2017 to January 18, 2018. It will last for four months for the first time in the history of the Moscow Biennale.

The curator of the 7th Moscow Biennale is Yuko Hasegawa, Artistic Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo and Professor of Tokyo University of the Arts. The project Clouds⇄Forests focuses on a new eco-system formed through a circulation of “Cloud Tribes,” who were born on the Internet cloud space, and “Forest Tribes” who are born on cultural origins. The works of the artists of the main project will be displayed in a dialogue with works from the permanent exhibition of The State Tretyakov Gallery.

Yuko Hasegawa, curator of the main project:
“Clouds⇄Forests focuses on artists as a creative tribe transitioning, expanding and dissipating, from forest to cloud, rebuilding the subjectivity of spectators and showing that creativity is vital to the creation of new environmental spheres. Taking into account perceptions on the generation of new subjective environmental spheres, the curatorial criteria for this exhibition includes giving life to new technologies as well as exploring ways to obtain animistic artistic languages and connect cultural roots, and leveraging the rhizome-based organic system to traverse history, genres, and media.”

The main project of the 7th Moscow Biennale includes works of such well-known artists as Matthew Barney, Olafur Eliasson and Björk. The full list of the participants is here.

From this year, the Moscow Biennale has the Expert Council, which includes the heads of leading Russian museums, independent curators and representatives of non-profit foundations—Mikhail Piotrovsky (Director of the State Hermitage Museum), Zelfira Tregulova (Director of the State Tretyakov Gallery), Olga Sviblova (Director of Multimedia Art Museum), Vasily Tsereteli (Executive Director of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art), Andrey Erofeyev (Co-Chairman of the Russian Section of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA); curator), Alexander Rytov (Director of Stella Art Foundation) and others. The Expert Council takes all creative decisions.

Starting from this year, the Moscow Biennale introduced a system for presenting Russian artists to an international curator. The curator Yuko Hasegawa received over 600 applications from Russian artists and more than 100 recommendations from the Expert Council, museums and non-profit foundations. As a result, the following artists were selected to participate in the main project: Alexey Martins, Anastasia Potemkina, Valya Fetisov, Dashi Namdakov, Ilya Fedotov-Fedorov and the creative association “Where Dogs Run.” They will create new works specifically for the 7th Moscow Biennale. In addition, the curator has selected works by Alexander Vinogradov and Vladimir Dubodsarsky, Alina Gutkina and Mikhail Tolmachev from Gazprombank’s contemporary Russian art collection.

The Expert Council of the 7th Moscow International Biennale of Contemporary Art selected 69 projects for the parallel program of the Biennale with 49 institutions participating. For the first time the parallel program introduces many different types of institutions—from big museums to small workshops and galleries. The parallel program includes: Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA), Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow (MAMM), the center of contemporary art “Winzavod,” VDNKh, creative association XOLST, Darwin Museum, Gary Tatintsian Gallery, Moscow State University Botanical Garden “Aptekarsky Ogorod” and others.

The Moscow Biennale has for the first time actually become a single unified project. One of the things that brings it together is a mobile application, a digital guide—a joint project of the Moscow Biennale and Yandex—that maps and covers the main project of the Biennale and the parallel program throughout the city of Moscow, including navigation and audio guide to every exhibition. The goal of the application is to enable people to find out about the Moscow Biennale, obtain information on the specific projects taking place nearby and gain a detailed idea of what they will see.

The 7th Moscow Biennale will be accompanied by a series of special events, including meetings with artists, lectures and discussions. The Moscow Biennale also prepared separately a big kid’s programme, which will make it possible to come to the Moscow Biennale with the entire family.

Contact information:
Tatiana Nemirovskaya, PR-director
T +7 (926) 582 42 04 / tatiana.nemirovskaya [​at​] mosbiennale.com

Christina Vronskaya, press-manager  
T +7 (916) 326 91 18 / christina.vronskaya [​at​] mosbiennale.com