Cosmoscow 2020 to take place in September, announces first exhibitors
This year, the 8th Cosmoscow International Contemporary Art Fair to take place in Gostiny Dvor (4, Ilyinka St, Moscow) on September 11–13, supported by longstanding partners – Program Partner Cultural Creative Agency, Official Partner Ruinart, and Automobile Partner Audi, announces first exhibitors.
Margarita Pushkina, Cosmoscow Founding Director:
“Each year, Cosmoscow gathers the foremost Russian galleries and a high-caliber and focused group of international galleries. Despite all the difficulties that all of us have encountered this year, we have had numerous discussions and official advice that we can present this year’s edition, and our regular participants will join us once again. We deeply appreciate their trust and are equally glad that there are a number of influential first-time participants, such as the global player PERROTIN through their galleries in Asia. Not only will Cosmoscow 2020 take place in running order, we will also introduce our visitors to a number of new projects, to be announced in August.”
More than 50 Russian galleries will be present at the Fair, including: 11.12, Agency Art.Ru, ART4, ArtTube Editions, Artwin, Fābula, Fragment, HLAM, JART, Marina Gisich, MYTH, NK Gallery, Orekhov, Osnova, pop/off/art, Syntax, Triangle, Vellum, XL Projects, and сцена/szena. Cosmoscow 2020 will also welcome galleries whose founders are part of the Fair’s Expert Committee: leading Berlin gallerists Javier Peres & Nick Koenigsknecht of Peres Projects; Olga Temnikova, co-founder of Tallinn-based Temnikova & Kasela; and Elena Selina, founder of Moscow’s pre-eminent XL Gallery.
Cosmoscow is glad to be welcoming Perrotin founded by world-renowned French art dealer Emmanuel Perrotin. With galleries in Paris, Hong Kong, New York, Seoul, Tokyo, and Shanghai, Perrotin works with numerous acclaimed artists, including Takashi Murakami, Sophie Calle, JR, Daniel Arsham, Aya Takano, Elmgreen and Dragset to name a few. Perrotin takes part in the most important contemporary art fairs around the world, and now including Cosmoscow.
A complete list of galleries participating in Cosmoscow will be announced in mid-August.
COSMOSCOW FOUNDATION PROJECTS
Cosmoscow 2020 Museum of the Year – Garage Museum of Contemporary Art will present a booth based on its Archive Collection, which is the largest archive on the history of Russian contemporary art. The display will be organised as an interactive cabinet of curiosities, featuring equipment for the storage, restoration, and digitization of analogue video. Along with learning about the history of Garage Media Archive, Cosmoscow visitors will be able to take part in the digitization and restoration of video cassettes and digitize cassettes from their family archives. Selected videos showing art events in Moscow and St. Petersburg from 1985 to 2020 will be screened on the booth, including documentation of exhibitions and performances, archive footage, and recordings of interviews and TV shows.
Cosmoscow 2020 Artist of the Year – Pavel Otdelnov will present a commissioned project Geolocation, please? Choose yourself, that is a series of reflections of ex-urban non-places and changes in the outskirts of large cities started by the artist as part of the Inner Degunino and Shopping Center series. In the new project conceived during self-isolation, Otdelnov turns to virtual images: landscapes seen through the cameras of Yandex and Google cars. The project to be shown at the Fair, anticipates the large-scale project Russian Nowhere planned by the artist to unfold in the months ahead.
Ruinart Art Patronat grant winner – Margo Trushina will present a new project title Salon Vert project. Within a specially designed construction, Trushina will create a mythical garden with plants and singing stones as its main characters telling us about the abundance and fragility of nature. Each of these hybrid objects will have its own “voice”, which will sound at a touch by the audience. The soundscape for the installation will be created together with the Playtronica Laboratory.
In partnership with Audi Group, Cosmoscow Foundation for Contemporary Art launched the Audi Born-Digital Award aiming to support Russian media artists and seeking out the best of digital thinking. An open call was held through July 12 with the results to be announced at the end of the month. The author of the winning concept will receive 700.000 RUB (approx. 9,000 EUR) for the implementation of the concept and 250.000 RUB (approx. 3,000 EUR) as a fee. The winner’s work will be presented at the innovative Audi City Moscow showroom on Nikolskaya Street (in close proximity to the fair venue) in the run-up to the 8th Cosmoscow International Contemporary Art Fair, as well as on the Cosmoscow Foundation website.
Cosmoscow 2020 Institution of the Year – the Zheleznogorsk Сenter for Contemporary Art will be represented at the Fair with by projects of the art group Chicory, founders of the ZCCA. Chicory are involved in the infrastructural building of the art community and its capacity in their hometown of Zheleznogorsk and of the wider Kursk region. Over the two years since its establishment, the team has held more than 10 exhibition projects, educational programs and curatorial laboratories, reality shows, and the Zheleznogorsk Biennale of Contemporary Art. Besides paintings and found objects, at Cosmoscow the Chicory members will present the Home videos. Plein_air_extension VR project, a collection of outdoor group performances.
Further details on the foundation’s Cosmoscow Talks educational program and Cosmoscow Kids program for the youngest visitors to the Fair, as well as the Media Forum program will be announced in mid-August, together with a complete list of Cosmoscow exhibitors.
