Educational Program

Moscow City Department of Culture

Manege Association

Educational Program along the lines of “The Sculptures We Do Not See” exhibition

“The Sculptures We Do Not See” exhibition is a full-scale exploration of the underground non-conformist art phenomenon, which existed in the Soviet Union apart from the official art. It is a group exhibition of the acclaimed Moscow artistic group LeSS (1954-1968) formed by sculptors Vadim Sidur, Vladimir Lemport and Nikolay Silis. The exhibition also features works by contemporary artists including Anatoly Osmolovsky, Haim Sokol, Dmitry Gutov, Alexander Povzner and others.

Along the lines of the exhibition, the Manege Museum and Exhibition Association offers an educational program with guided tours of the display, lectures by curators and art critics, and a round table.

August 20, 27 and September 3 – 7pm

Tours of the exhibition “The Sculptures We Do Not See” guided by Vera Trakhtenberg, the curator and conservator of the Manege Museum and Exhibition Association, and Petr Tolpin, the project’s chief architect and head of the development and special projects department. The organizers of the exhibition will discuss its concept and design, its main themes and purposes, the works on display and their authors, artists of different generations including Vadim Sidur, Leonid Berlin, Anatoly Slepyshev, Vladimir Lemport, Nikolay Silis, Anatoly Osmolovsky, Dmitry Gutov and others. The curator and chief architect will guide visitors through the exhibition, explain its unusual architecture, the principles of selection and arrangement of the plastic material, graphics, video, and sculptures.

August 21, 7.30pm

Art in Public Space. Lecture by Sabina Chagina

Sabina Chagina, a leading Russian graffiti curator, artist, curator of the Street Art Biennale and artistic union ArtMosSphere, founder of the Street Kit gallery, will give a talk on art in the urban environment, where it comes to face an unprepared viewer and to communicate with urban space.

August 28, 7.30pm

“Contemporary Art in Urban Space: From Land Art Objects and Minimalism to Historic Reenactment”, lecture by Andrei Parshikov

The lecture will focus on the evolution of the formal ideas of an urban artistic object, the purposes of contemporary art in the urban environment of the 20th century and its current development. The talk will address questions how you react to the appearance of graffiti images in city streets, to performances, sculptures and objects, and why, even if they annoy us, we should give it a thought rather than expect something inviting and beautiful from the artists.

September 4, 7.30 pm

Lecture by Alexandra Novozhenova

Between Abstraction And Ideology: 1960s and Artistic Language of Cold War

The artists of the first historical avant-garde — from Wassily Kandinsky to Alexander Rodchenko — strived for abstraction devoid of any meaning and arising out of the inner necessity. After its departure from Socialist Realism, the post-war Soviet art, both within and outside the official frame, turned once again to the values of modernism, but then, with unofficial easel art, monumental art, design and architecture, abstract forms emerged as a medium to convey universal ideologies and meanings, either humane, pacifist, scientific, mystical or progressive.

Alexandra Novozhenova is an art critic, art historian and lecturer who has contributed as a writer and editor to several influential titles including Colta.ru, Khudozhestvenny Zhurnal (Moscow Art Magazine), Artkhronika (“The Art Chronicle”), Vedomosti, Iskusstvo Kino (The Art of Filmmaking), Afisha, Translit, Openlift and others. Novozhenova teaches Modern Art History at the Rodchenko Art School. Her research interests include the history of Soviet art and sociology of the Soviet art studies of the 1920s.

September 4, 2pm

Sculpture in Urban Space. Round table

Participants: Dmitry Gutov, Anatoly Osmolovsky, Vsevolod Shcherbakov, Vasili Tsereteli, Milena Orlova, Evgeny Svyatsky, Tatiana Arzamasova, Sergey Polovinkin, Irina Tolpina.

Moderators: Andrey Parshikov, Vera Trakhtenberg

The talk will focus on the paths of art in the urban environment and different ways of communication between a viewer and an art object in the public space; on the most interesting examples of sculpture moving outside the museum walls and the historical meaning of bringing sculptures, art objects and installations to city streets. Artists and critics will share their ideas of further development of public art and will discuss the most prominent examples of events involving public art in the global modern art history.

Ticket prices:

Tours are by ticket only. Ticket price: 250 rubles; special rate: 50 rubles.

Tours are available in English.

Admission to lectures and round table: 300 rubles.

Media contacts (accreditation, interviews):

Manege Association | +7 (965) 412–74–24 | pr.manege@gmail.com

Elena Karneeva | e.karneeva@moscowmanege.ru, +7 (926) 576-40-53

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