Garage Museum of Contemporary Art!

GARAGE MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART ANNOUNCES THE WINNERS OF TRAVEL GRANTS FOR INTERNATIONAL CURATORS   Garage Museum of Contemporary Art is pleased to announce the winners of its Travel Grants for international curators. These grants will be used to enable the winning curators to attend the first Garage Triennial of Russian Contemporary Art which runs from March 10 to May 14, 2017. The winners, selected from a diverse international pool of established curators, will spend four days in Moscow, where they will explore the largest survey of contemporary Russian art to date. The winners are: Riksa Afiatry (Indonesia), Celenk Bafra (Turkey), Lizaveta German (Ukraine), Jarret Gregory (United States), Albert Heta (Kosovo), Li Qi (China), Joanna Sokolowska (Poland), Polly Staple (Great Britain), Chen Tamir (Israel), and Diana Ukhina (Kyrgyzstan). Garage received more than 130 applications from 44 countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Georgia, Germany, Iceland, Philippines, Serbia, and Sweden. The applicant pool comprised a wide variety of curators from institutions, nonprofits, and experimental arts spaces, as well as a variety of nomadic and independent curators. The winners were chosen from this extremely competitive group for the promise they demonstrated in engaging with and continuing the dialogue initiated by the Triennial. The Travel Grant covers return airfare and accommodation for four days in Moscow during the Triennial’s run. In preparation for the Triennial, Garage has embarked on the largest-ever survey of art practices across Russia. Presenting works from more than 60 artists from across the country, the exhibition captures the zeitgeist of some of the most active and influential figures of the past five years, offering insight into the diversity of social tendencies that constitute the underexplored Russian art scene. Working with Garage’s regional network of art practitioners to navigate local contexts across the vast and diverse country, the curators met with over 200 artists, ranging from 19 to 69 years old. From this research they identified seven “vectors,” or tendencies, through which the current art life of Russia could be broadly understood. These range from a strong fidelity to place and a drive to create elaborate mythological worlds, to the use of art practice as activism, or as a mechanism to participate in international discourse. Often isolated and working in the absence of established cultural infrastructure, what unites the artists is resourcefulness and a powerful belief in art as a way of life. The Triennial will take place in the Museum and the surrounding area of Gorky Park. For the opening of the exhibition, all participating artists will be invited to Moscow to facilitate the development of a country-wide, peer-to-peer network. Garage Triennial is the latest development in an extensive program that the Museum is undertaking to build a stronger infrastructure for contemporary Russian art, which ranges from the Garage Grant Program for Emerging Artists to the establishment of Garage Archive in 2012. GARAGE MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART Garage Museum of Contemporary Art is a place for people, art, and ideas to create history. Through an extensive program of exhibitions, events, education, research, and publishing, the institution reflects on current developments in Russian and international culture, creating opportunities for public dialogue, as well as the production of new work and ideas in Moscow. At the center of all these activities is the Museum’s collection, which is the first archive in the country related to the development of Russian contemporary art from the 1950s through the present. Founded in 2008 by Dasha Zhukova and Roman Abramovich, Garage is the first philanthropic organization in Russia to create a comprehensive public mandate for contemporary art and culture. Open seven days a week, it was initially housed in the renowned Bakhmetevsky Bus Garage in Moscow, designed by the Constructivist architect Konstantin Melnikov. In 2012 Garage relocated to a temporary pavilion in Gorky Park, specifically commissioned from award-winning architect Shigeru Ban. A year later, a purpose-built Education Center was opened next to the Pavilion. On June 12, 2015, Garage welcomed visitors to its first permanent home. Designed by Rem Koolhaas and his OMA studio, this groundbreaking preservation project transformed the famous Vremena Goda (Seasons of the Year) Soviet Modernist restaurant, built in 1968 in Gorky Park, into a contemporary museum.   Garage is a non-profit project of The IRIS Foundation. INGOSSTRAKH Ingosstrakh has been a major player in both the Russian and international markets since 1947. The company is a national leader in Russia for the total amount of insurance premiums in the voluntary insurance sector (not including life insurance). Ingosstrakh is authorized to handle all types of insurance services (in accordance with the insurance company’s specialization) specified in Art. 32.9 of the Insurance Law of the Russian Federation, as well as reinsurance services.The company has 149 locations throughout the Russian Federation, in addition to other branches and subsidiaries worldwide. For many years, Ingosstrakh has provided insurance services for important works of art and other valuable historical objects to some of the world's top museums and galleries, including the Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France; The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia; the Tretyakov State Gallery, Moscow, Russia; and the Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia; along with a number of important private collections.