John Baldessari
1+1=1
21 September–24 November 2013
Garage Center for Contemporary Culture
Gorky Park, 9 Krymsky Val
119049 Moscow, Russia
Hours: Monday–Thursday 11–21h,
Friday–Sunday 11–22h
T +7 495 645 05 20
John Baldessari’s first exhibition in Russia, 1+1=1, offers a playful double-take on the canon of art history and continues the artist’s longstanding investigation into the tensions between text and image in art. Produced in 2011 and 2012, the works were created in four interconnected parts—Double Vision, Double Feature, Double Bill (Part 1 and 2) and Double Play. The exhibition at Garage Center for Contemporary Culture will be the first time a selection from the whole series is seen together.
Using art history textbooks as his source, Baldessari has selected masterpieces from the 18th to the 20th centuries by artists including Chardin, de Chirico, Courbet, David, Duchamp, Gaugin, Hockney, Magritte, Malevich, Manet, Matisse and Warhol. In each instance, he gives the works a new lease on life by choosing a fragment and interpreting it as a complete image in its own right before ‘doubling’ or pairing it with a text that appears as a title. Works in Double Vision pair one artist’s name with a visual fragment from another well-known artist; Double Feature combines an outtake of an Old Master painting with a title from film noir; Double Bill juxtaposes images culled from two works, with one of the artists named below and the other not; and Double Play couples an image with a title from a song.
1+1=1 is co-curated by Garage’s new Chief Curator, Kate Fowle, and International Advisor, Hans Ulrich Obrist. The show is presented as part of the citywide cultural program developed in conjunction with the 5th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art. In celebration of Baldessari’s first visit to Moscow, Garage is hosting a public conversation between the artist and Ilya Kabakov on Wednesday 18 September 2013. Over the opening weekend of the Biennale, the artist will also unveil a new work created specifically for Garage on two billboards in Gorky Park.
The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated 150-page, bilingual hardcover catalogue with an interview between the artist and curators, as well as a new essay by curator and writer Daniel Birnbaum, Director of Moderna Museet, the museum of modern art in Stockholm, Sweden.
Artist Talk:
John Baldessari in conversation with Ilya Kabavov
Wednesday 18 September 2013, 19h
Central House of Artists
10 Krymsky Val
119049, Moscow
Advanced booking is required. To register, please click here.
For further information, please contact brittany [at] garageccc.com.
About Garage
Garage Center for Contemporary Culture is a platform for new thinking in Moscow. Through an extensive program of exhibitions, events, research, education and publishing, Garage reflects on current developments in Russian and international culture, creating opportunities for public dialogue and the production of new work and ideas.
Founded in 2008 by Dasha Zhukova, the institution is building a unique archive focusing on the development of contemporary art in Russia, while pioneering diverse educational projects for families and professionals that are the first of their kind in the country. These provide the foundation from which the program of experimental exhibitions, events and screenings are initiated.
In May 2012, Garage launched a publishing program in collaboration with Ad Marginem Press, which includes the translation of major texts on contemporary art and architecture, new media, photography, theater, cinema, sociology and cultural marketing. In October 2012, Garage relocated from its former home in the Bakhmetevsky Bus Garage to Gorky Park. Garage Pavilion, designed by Shigeru Ban, houses an exhibition hall, café and bookshop.
Garage Center for Contemporary Culture is a non-profit project of The IRIS Foundation.
