“Telo truda”, Diana Machulina‘s project, that was first exhibited at the New Tretyakov Gallery as a parallel project of the 4th International Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, is nominated for the Kandinsky Prize 2014 “Project of the year”.

The exhibition of nominees takes place from Sept 18 to Nov 30 at Udarnik, Moscow. The prize will be awarded in December.

More info : Kandinsky Prize

Alina & Jeff Bliumis present their new project Thank You Paintings Exchange at the Denner Gallery, New-York.

Thank You Paintings Exchange initiates a series of material, social, gestural, intellectual and monetary exchanges between artist and collector, with the commercial art gallery as site and passive participant. The fifteen paintings on view depict scenes of everyday life: a woman sitting on a deserted beach, children playing, cars parked in front of a suburban home, etc. Each painting has the text, “Thank You For Your” painted on it, completed with words such as “Email,” “Poem,” “Kiss,” “Prayers,” “Dance,” “Pants,” “Thoughts.” Sometimes a viewer might detect a relationship between the text and the subject of the painting, but there is no deliberate, direct relationship. The painting points toward the value of the painting as an artwork, while the text points toward the exchange the artists propose to initiate with the collector.

In order to acquire a painting, the collector must participate in the exchange the artists have proposed, giving the artists the object, gesture, concept, etc. for which the painting “thanks” them, in addition to making a flat $1,000 financial transaction. The interaction between artist and buyer must be in some way documented, whether that document is the object that is exchanged (“Thank You For Your Pants”) or a photograph of the exchange (“Thank You For Your Hug”), or a written text (“Thank You For Your Thoughts”). The original documentation of the exchange will immediately replace the purchased painting on the wall and a copy of it will be stapled to the back of the painting. The actions and objects requested by the artists may be creatively interpreted by the collector. For example: to exchange for the “Thank You For Your Poem” painting, the collector might give a poem they have written or their favorite poem, it might be hand-written, emailed, or on the page of a book.

In “Fear and Hope“, an exhibition at the Pinchuk Art Center in Kiev, three Ukrainian artists, Nikita Kadan, Zhanna Kadyrova and Artem Volokytin, present new works with older ones, revealing the presence of the recent conditions of their countries through their thinking.

The new paintings of Artem Volokytin presented in the show, represent a drastic change in the artistic practice of Volokytin, which is a direct response to the violence that became a part of daily life in Ukraine. His work focuses on the act of violence, more specifically an explosion, but also on the emptiness and the personal loss.

Photographs provided by the PinchukArtCentre © 2014. Photographed by Sergey Illin

“Quelles sont nos ruines?” (“What are our ruines ?”), is a on-going collective and multidisciplinary project organized by Alain Hélou from Les Ateliers du Vent in Rennes, France. This project brings together a group of artists from France, Russia and Moldova around the concept of ‘ruins’, whether there are physical in the landscape or immaterial from our history. Our everyday life is always looking for new, bright and valuable things. The aim of the the current project is to look to the ruins which are also part of our world and are often left behind or ignored.

“Applause”, Diana Machulina, 2009, oil on canvas, 163x400cm

Four photographs from the series “Mothers and Daughters” by Ivan Mikhailov are presented in the exhibition “Allégories d’oubli” as part of the Nouveau Festival at the Pompidou Center in Paris.

The exhibition gathers fifty proposals by contemporary artists who introduced the idea of the forgotten and the reminiscence in their work.

Vladimir Logutov, Irina Korina and Elikuka take part with a couple of other contemporary Russian artists to the group show “On top”, an epoch reflected in the sky of Moscow, curated by Evguenia Kikodze at the Museum of Moscow.

The exhibition gather in one room the most famous contemporary artists in Russia.

With even artwork displayed on the exhibition hall ceiling of the museum of the Moscow history, the artists make us raise our head, look above, and discover a range of information that our contemporary urban way of living doesn’t give us the time to see or cuts off of our thoughts.

Must see if you are in Moscow from Feb 7 to April 1st

website of the Moscow Museum (only in Russian)

Images courtesy the artists and the Moscow Museum

In the exhibition  ”Russia beyond mythologies“, curated by Olga Sviblova and the Moscow Multimedia Art Museum, as part of Russenko festival  in Kremlin-Bicêtre, the young Russian photographer Ivan Mikhailov presents his new photographic project “Mothers and Daughters“.

With a scientific and objective approach inherited from the Dusseldorf school of photography, Ivan Mikhailov presents the women of forty families he has selected in different regions in Russia and from various social origins, using the same position and neutral light, giving a documentary and almost cataloging dimension to this artwork.

Ivan Mikhailov wants to investigate the passing of time through generations as well as the relations inside a familly, with a personal touch as, with 3 sisters, he has always been surrounded by women in his childhood.

Images : view from the exhibition, Ivan Mikhailov

Fyodor Pavlov-Andreevich, performance artist, writer, theater director and filmmaker, living between Moscow, London and São Paulo will present 3 events in Miami during the art week there.

* “Jesus Cristo de Jelo”, a false stereoscopic performative photography piece presented at Luciana Brito Galeria’s booth, Art Basel Miami Beach, Dec 5-8

* “Chewing for the lion”, a performance as a part of Whitechapel Gallery’s special Miami night, Hotel Delanoe, on Dec 3rd, 8-11pm