July 9 – August 10 2016
Artists:
Bogdan Ablozhnyy / Anne de Boer / Eloïse Bonneviot / Racheal Crowther / Adam Christensen / Ruth Angel Edwards /
Patrick Goddard / Maria Gorodeckaya / Tom Huett / Isaac Lythgoe / Frances Malthouse / Josip Novosel / Cory Scozzari / Amalia Ulman / ВАСЯ RUN
Curated by Alexander Burenkov.
“Planned obsolescence” is the international exhibition project bringing together 15 leading young Russian and foreign artists. All artists, presented at the exhibition are exploring in their artistic practice in one way or another issues of identity and the impact of technology on its formation, the human body and the changing attitude towards the concept of corporeality, materiality, aesthetics and beauty. Artists are wondering how the modern world makes us a different way to treat our bodies as digitalization, virtualization, and new ways and means of communication in the modern world changes our perception of bodily, physical and material world.
As a title of the exhibition served a term “planned, dynamic, or built-in obsolescence” which refers to the creation of a product with an unjustifiably short use life with the aim of forcing the consumer to make a repeat purchase. The process was first developed in the 1920s and ‘30s with the advent of large-scale production, when each and every minute of the production process came under scrutiny.
When analysing the contemporary situation of the technological overproduction of developed capitalism, it is a simple matter to diagnose the penetration of planned obsolescence processes into the very fabric of our age.
Concern over obsolescence is a feeling that penetrates and conditions our behaviour, way of thinking, purchasing power and relationship to self, to our external appearance and identity, the obsolescence of which is pushed for even more strongly than is the case with regard to material wellbeing and physical goods, as they barely manage to replace each other in the endless cycle of renewal. Accelerated capitalistic processes, market forces and technological progress all demand a rethinking of our relationship towards radical innovations.
The artists of the exhibition will be invited to create new works for the exhibition remotely in the “accelerated artistic production” mode, limited to a period of one week in between other exhibition projects and commitments scheduled for this summer, during their flights between the countries, on the run. Projects will be sent by artists from different countries by post, fax or internet. Some performative works and interventions designed specifically for the exhibition opening or examining the specifics of the complex space of the wellness center and applying the working staff of the club, will be set in place, in Moscow, and will be also limited by conceptual terms of one week.