The director of the Hermitage, Mikhail Piotrovsky, called Russian exhibitions abroad a "powerful cultural offensive."
Russia is returning to the Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art. In 2022, when the war began, the Russian pavilion stood closed. In 2024, Russia leased it to Bolivia. Now, Putin's special representative for cultural cooperation, Mikhail Shvydkoy, has announced that Russia never left the biennale and "has always been present in the Venetian cultural space."
The Russian exhibition at the 61st Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art will be called "The Tree is Rooted in the Sky." Social media users joke that this tree is a "Hazel."
A series of sound performances is planned, with several dozen authors working on them. The first will be shown during the preview from May 6 to 8, when the biennale will be open only to accredited journalists.
The project is coordinated by the Gnessin Russian Academy of Music. The pavilion's commissioner since 2021 has been Anastasia Karneeva, co-founder of Smart Art and daughter of the deputy director of Rostec, Nikolai Volobuev.
Bloggers are outraged that Russia will be represented at the largest international exhibition of contemporary art in the midst of war. Ukrainian art critic Konstantin Doroshenko reminds that back in 2022, the director of the Hermitage, Mikhail Piotrovsky, called Russian exhibitions abroad a "powerful cultural offensive," comparing them to a "special operation." "The leadership of the Venice Biennale should take this into account," says Doroshenko.
The list of Russian participants includes composer of electronic and electroacoustic music Oleg Gudachev, musical performer and DJ from Mali DJ Diaki, accordionist and performer Roman Malyavkin, musical performer and producer from Argentina Jaijiu, composer of chamber, symphonic, choral, and electroacoustic works Alexey Retinsky, and the vocal ensemble Intrada led by Moscow Conservatory graduate Ekaterina Antonenko.
Other participants will include composer and improviser Alexey Sysoyev, artist, set designer, and flower enthusiast Timofey Dudarenko, the contemporary ensemble of young folk performers "Toloka," pianist Petr Musoev, the musical project Phurpa, multi-instrumentalist and folk performer Alexey Khovalyg, sound artist Tatyana Khalbaeva, the musical project Atosigado by Mexican producer and artist Oscar Landgraf Ortega, composer Lukas Sukharev, and music producer and DJ JLZ.
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