How can we not drown in temporal holes and decipher the signs that the past has always left in the present? Five landmark Moscow projects offer their versions of the answer to this question, addressing memory labyrinths, the traumas of those who passed away, and the search for a point of support in a fragile and controversial contemporary. From the sensitive residence of Asya Zaslavski and the archaeology of the Soviet unconscious Sergei Bugaev-Africa to the critical rethinking of totalitarian language and scientific utopia, the artists of the current exhibitions turn expositional spaces into a tool for conjuring history and fixing human relations with modernity.
Gallery pop/off/art (Moscow) 04.02.26 — 01.03.26
Types of a personal exhibition «The Way of Time» by Asi Zaslavska at the pop/off/art gallery pop/off/art (photo: Eugenia Senina)
Asi Zaslavsky’s exhibition is the debut of an ambitious young artist in pop/off/art. The theme of the project is based on a sensitive perception of the «fragility» of the moment. Zaslavian talks about the elusive time, the work of memory, and how a miracle hidden in a matrix of everyday events can calm the fading horizon of events. The written statement is based on the fact that each person lives differently in the current moment, depending on the circumstances. We are able to influence the course of events in one way or another, to enter temporal mazes and to reverse the course of time with the effort of will — and that is what shows the fabulousness of the exhibition, its fantasticness. The key images of the exhibition are the dial, the field flowers, the snow, the fragments. They’re like signs on a map that can form a model of discrete, non-linear, sometimes chaotic time. In the pop/off/art gallery, more than 30 new works and a number of software pieces of Zaslavski are presented, ranging from installations and objects to painting on icon boards and graphics; the display is full of thin visual roll-calls and enticing forms of running time registration.
Pennlab Gallery (Moscow) 04.02.26 — 27.02.26
Work at Vladislav Efimov’s personal exhibition «The Mystery of Living Matter» at Pennlab Gallery
The landmark project is dedicated to the work of Igor Makarewicz and Elena Elaguina, «Laboration of Great Works». At the heart of the artist’s thinking are utopian dreams about the constructive and powerful interference of elite structures with the purity and autonomy of nature. In the area of Efim’s exposure, it features images of great researchers, a little bit dull under pressure of time, as well as a series of monochrome photos of the sky, hidden by conceptual manifes about the idea of «re-education» of organisms (their tames) to transform society as a whole. The project demonstrates the tight links between the Institute of Totalizing Science and Art as a method of reprobation and provocation. How colonial is science to nature? What is the potential of art in the context of the struggle for the decolonization of knowledge? These and other questions could be answered with the sponsor.
SISTEMA GALLERY (Moscow) 22.01.26 — 08.03.26
Invented. 1: Type of exhibition of the personal exhibition «Rebus» by Sergei Bugaeva-Afrika in SISTEMA GALLERY / Invent. 2: «The beginning was Rebus, 1999. Folgated Textolite, Sistema GALLERY
The exhibition of the key figure of Leningrad Andergrand, 1980's 1990's, is an all-out artifact that exists at the border between a thorough anthropological / philosophical analysis and the personal artistic experience of the time collapsed. In the area of exposure, there are many copper plates showing the symbols of the past era and the subsequent state of uncertainty on the surface. Visual and text ribbons on the plates are a code that can be rediscerned after a historical injury. The end of the Soviet era and the study of the nature of collective and individual memory through rebuses are the central method of the artist. It converts the rebus from visual cipher into an independent magic object, raw material for the collective unconscious. In a copper plate with drawings, the artist concentrates on historical palimpesists, collective aphasia, and the psychology of the generation. The Bugaev-Afrika exhibition puts the audience in a confused maze of meanings, facing the schizophrenic nature of the rendezvous. Only an unmistakable critical look is an effective tool for entering a new historical state. Coordinator: Veronica Abashina
The Shift Gallery (Moscow) 11.02.26 — 28.03.26
The types of exhibit «Is It Forever? " at the Shift Gallery Shift
Artists of different generations gathered to discuss once again the nature of the sign systems and to rock the shaky language of the Soviet past. The collective exhibition touches on rather thin matter: the undisappearing paradigm of (uncompleted) Communism, which left behind a large layer of signs, symbols, social and aesthetic dogma. At the end of the Soviet era, there was a whole bunch of artists whose main task was to deconstruct the supposedly untranslable language of the totalitarian regime. They were pioneers who formed a new aesthetic discourse. The exhibition includes both older authors (classic of Sozart Leonid Sokov and conceptualist Sergei Mironenko, who set off the sunset of the USSR era) and artists whose practice was already developed in the post-Council context (Diana Machulina, blue nose art group, Kutya and Denis Krukov). They all share one thing: a genuine interest in the critical embrace of the past and the division of the socio-political structures of the USSR. ♪ The curator: Andrei Vasilenko ♪
PTA Fabrica (Moscow) 31.01.26 — 08.03.26
Types of exhibition «Without the Support Point» by Julia Reznikova and Natalia Kondratová in the TCI Fabrica «Fabrica»
The authors are trying to understand how a new world can be rethinked, where we all live now and whose shapes are still unclear. The artists are in search of a point of support and internal freedom. They’re writing a recitation of history. By selecting classical mediums (painting, machine graphics, and printing), Julia and Natalia are building space to reflect the emotional state of society, the psychological storms, the stages of instability, which are exacerbated by waves beating against rocks. The exhibition in the Act Hall shows two levels of the spirit of time: Natalia Condratova’s color contrasts with the muffled tones of the mural of Julia Reznikova. They make emotional drawings that can be compared to Bachov fugues. The goal of the authors is to break out of time and gain eternal harmony…
How do you see in the past what everyone’s missing out on? How can you catch culture at a time when it’s not history yet? How to handle the archiving of eras? history.medica helps find answers to these questions. It’s an evolving educational platform where original copyrights are published, from the Longrids about the history of societies, people and places to bright posters with rare miniatures and towels. History.mediiia is an event, accomplishment, and fate that is clearly represented.
Diversity of educational materials on history.mediiia
The author of the text: Michael Arutyunyan on the cover: Type of exhibit of Asi Zaslavska’s Personal Exhibition «The Way of Time» at the Pop/off/art Gallery Pop/off/art
