‘That Obscure Object of Art’
Contemporary Russian art from the
Stella Art Foundation collection
4th June – 5th October 2009, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
(ticket office 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.), closed on Tuesday.
Curator: Vladimir Levashov
Press days: 3rd, 4th and 5th June: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
53rd International Art Exhibition –
La Biennale di Venezia Collateral Event
Ca’ Rezzonico, Museum of XVIII Century Art
Fondamento Rezzonico – Dorsoduro, 3136
• Collateral Exhibition ‘That Obscure Object of Art’ at Ca’ Rezzonico
• Stella Art Foundation artists featured in the official selection of the 53rd Venice Art Biennale
• The Moscow Poetry Club
In the majestic surroundings of Ca’ Rezzonico, the Museum of Eighteenth-Century Venetian art and one of Venice’s splendid palazzos, the Stella Art Foundation, in collaboration with the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, presents ‘That Obscure Object of Art’, an exhibition featuring nearly 70 works from the Stella Art Foundation collection. Curated by Vladimir Levashov, ‘That Obscure Object of Art’ displays works by a plethora of prominent contemporary Russian artists including Yuri Albert, Ivan Chuikov, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, Boris Orlov, Anatoly Osmolovsky, and Alexander Ponomarev who will be present with his submarine ‘SubTiziano’.
Taking place from the 4th of June until the 5th of October 2009, ‘That Obscure Object of Art’ sits at the heart of the Stella Art Foundation’s involvement with the Venice Biennale. The Moscow-based foundation also supports the work of Elena Elagina & Igor Makarevich, Anna Parkina, Pavel Pepperstein, and Anya Zholud, and the Moscow Poetry Club, all featured in the official selection of the 53rd Venice Biennale.
‘I feel very privileged to be introducing Russian art of today in Venice, as part of the 53rd Venice Biennale,’ says Stella Kesaeva, founder and president of the Stella Art Foundation. ‘The encounter of visual art, poetry and literature which our Foundation presents at this Biennale clearly follows the tradition of the Russian avant-garde of the early 20th century whose aim it was to shape an environment charged with rich, creative energy. Almost a century later, their spirit is as strong as ever and will inspire the creative forces of those artists and poets who at this 53rd Biennale will Make Worlds.’
Moscow Poetry Club:
From the 3rd till the 7th of June, the Moscow Poetry Club in the Biennale bookstore in the Giardini presents poetic performances, curated by Daniel Birnbaum and Eugeny Bunimovich, which involve Russian, Italian, Greek, Cypriot, American and Austrian poets. These performances reflect curator Daniel Birnbaum’s aspirations to transcend the traditional disciplines highlighted during the Venice Biennale.
STELLA ART FOUNDATION is a non-profit organization, founded in 2004 on the initiative of Stella Kesaeva, the Russian contemporary art collector. The prime objective of the Foundation is to promote Russian contemporary art. Stella Art Foundation currently has several hundreds of works from approximately 70 Western and Russian artists and concentrates its collection particularly on the period from 1975 to the present. The Foundation is planning to put on a permanent display in 2010 when it opens its contemporary museum in one of Konstantin Melnikov’s garages in Moscow.
For all Russian media enquiries, please contact:
Anna Svergun on artpr@svergun.ru or Tel. +7 916 609 4115
For all International media enquiries, please contact Brunswick Arts:
Klara M. Piza and Nicolas Smirnoff on stellaartfoundation@brunswickgroup.com or
Tel. +49 30 20 67 33 68 and +44 20 7936 1275
