Moscow City Government

“Free Studios” School of Contemporary Art

present annual exhibition of young art

“Workshop 20’09” “My Love, My Friends”

“It’ better to have a hundred friends, than a hundred rubles”, “Tell me who your friends are, and I’ll tell who you are” Russian proverb

Moscow Museum of Modern Art has been hosting annual “Workshop” exhibition since 2001. Since then the project has grown into a full-scale festival of young art. For “Workshop 20’09” the curators have chosen one of the most important issues in contemporary anthropology – relations between “Self” and “Others”; they have united the entire range of possible interpretations under the title «My Love, My Friends”. Executed in various media – painting, installation, mixed media, - 40 works presented within the main project aim to explore young artists’ understanding of love and friendship, subjects that have stirred interest for ages.

Everyone exists in the community of “Others”, people come across as many personalities, they play different roles, wear various masks, and engage in diverse actvities. Self-indentification is impossible without «the Other». Loneliness leads to isolation, and deprives people of their personal identity.

Me and You, Me and “the Other” – these are the key words in the dialogic discourse which defines man’s specific position in the human world. It is only through interaction between “Me” and “the Other” that the world of relations is established – relations to nature, to society, and to God. In the social existence of a personality, its freedom and self-assertion are impossible without interaction with others – friends, colleagues, beloved ones. In a dialogue with the Other, the personality arises, there is no “me” without “you”. Mutual communication is what proves the existence of “me” – this perception of “me” through “another” lies at the basis of man’s cultural self-identification.

Mutual communication is impossible without attachment to friends, trust and love – it is through love that man realizes his true self, love crowns the system of relations, it is at the top life philosophy. Break-up in communication, loss of love and affection, absence of friendly contact – this is an anthropologic catastrophe that leads to the loss of personality as part of society. In modern society, love “dies out” and others see each other as objects of consumption. According to Erich Fromm, the society which “eschews evolution of love will eventually disappear” – so maybe we have reached the end of the line?

The curators try to answer this and other important questions using the language of contemporary artistic statement. They focus their attention on different, and often unusual, human relations problems, in which friendship co-exists with aggression, and where “self” and “the other” face irreconcilable confrontation.

With its new information and communication systems, modern world introduces new forms of interpersonal communication. Television and internet add new friends – pop stars, reality-show, social network firends. However, traditional forms of interpersonal communication remain intact: affection for one’s near and dear, to close, loving one’s pets, and favourite clothes, and other trifles that make our life brighter.

This year «Workshop 20’09» presents 2 special curatorial projects, exploring different forms of interpersonal communication: «Detachment Zones» by Marina Fomenko, and «Klischee» by Nika Kukhtina. They focus their attention on loneliness, and purposelessness as the flip side of the growing communication world, where real communication is diminishing, and where national cultural stereotypes are transferred to individual communication. Overcoming these stereotypes starts up cultural dialogue between different nations.

* * * Besides exhibition projects, «Workshop 20’09» also presents a number of cultural events:

 Curatorial program by Tatiana Danilyants «Art-House short films», which takes part in the festival for the fourth time. This year it presents 2 programs: «Little Days of a Big City» and «Chiaroscuro». The screenings will be held at Moscow Museum of Contemporary Art (25 Petrovka Str.).

 A free lecture course covering contemporary art and design issues will be held every Wednesday at Cafe 25 (Moscow Museum of Modern Art, 25 Petrovka Str.). the project is co-organised by T&P. Host speakers include Darya Pyrkina, Olga Shishko, Protey Temen, and others.

For further information:

international@mmoma.ru