Moscow's Garage Museum Opens New Exhibition Season Inspired By Post-COVID Reality

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 31st March, 2021) The Garage Contemporary Art Museum, one of the leading Moscow's art institutions, has opened a new exhibition season inspired by post-COVID and lockdown reflections, featuring the works by Russian and foreign contemporary artists.

The headliner exhibition this season is titled "Assuming Distance: Speculations, Fakes, and Predictions in the Age of the Coronacene." In this context, "coronacene" is a new epoch the humanity is now living in after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has completely redefined almost every aspect of human life, including the arts. This new era succeeds anthropocene, a proposed epoch commencing from the start of significant human impact on environment and climate change.

"Assuming Distance" was conceived by the museum during the first lockdown in Russia, when the exhibition Calendar was interrupted by the shutdown of art institutions for visitors. As part of a humanitarian mission, Garage, for the first time in its history, decided to do an open call in order to support the artists, many of whom struggled financially during the pandemic. As a result, the museum selected 33 participants out of over 1,000 applications received. Those selected were asked to reflect in their work some kind of distance to "coronacene" and to come up with speculations and predictions - from realistic to absurd - regarding the life post-COVID.

Maxim Trulov and Ksyusha Lastochka, an artistic duo from Russia's Nizhny Novgorod, have created a life-size model of a food truck - resembling those selling ice cream - carrying a wishful sign "Cure-All." In the artistic duo's predictions, the cities during COVID have turned into car parks with trailer schools and trailer coffee shops. The "Cure-All" truck sells magic paper which can heal all diseases and viruses in the time when health care has become the most important issue on the global agenda.

An artwork titled G Minor by Moscow-based artist Maxim Spivakov explores a popular conspiracy theory that 5G network, which are being rolled out across the globe, can transmit COVID-19. The artist installed plasma display panels on metal pipes. The TVs are showing videos of the 5G telecommunication towers being burned down, while the pipes resemble the towers itself.

Visitors may find "Assuming Distance" easy to navigate. The exhibition's galleries are connected by the pathways of luminous frosted glass squares, echoing the playthrough of a computer game or perhaps even Tetris, one of the best-selling video games originating from Russia.

Apart from the headliner exhibition, Garage has opened an exposition of video art called the Unseen Sound by Belgian artist David Claerbout. This is his first solo exhibition in Russia and it will run through May 2.

The museum has also unveiled an exhibition titled Present Continuous, which explores cancellations and unrealized ideas by artists and architects, whose works are part of the Garage Archive Collection. This exhibition seeks to find a therapeutic approach towards projects that have never come to life as they are common in the art sphere. "Present Continuous" includes documentary reconstructions of unrealized ideas such as Francisco Infante-Arana's light and sound project, created for the Red Square.

Both "Present Continuous" and "Assuming Distance" will run through early August, 2021. Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, located in Moscow's Gorky Park, is considered to be one of the trailblazers in creating a favorable space for contemporary art in Russia. The institution was founded in 2008 by prominent Russian businessman Roman Abramovich and patron of the arts Dasha Zhukova.