Curators

Biennial commissioner and special projects curator

Alisa Prudnikova

Art historian, curator.

Director of the Ekaterinburg Branch of the National Center for Contemporary Arts (NCCA). Lecturer at the Department of Art History and Culture Studies of the Ural State University. Graduate of the ProArte Institute (St. Petersburg) with a major in "Culture management". Worked at the “Echo of Moscow – Ekaterinburg” radio station, collaborated with regional and national art magazines. Editor-in-chief, from 2002 to 2008, of "ZAART” – a magazine for creators and consumers of art.

Expert (2006–2008) and member of jury committee (2009) of "Innovation", the first Russian national award in contemporary arts. Among her curatorial projects are: “The Inner Urals. Ural Art in 1993–2008” (co-curator, Moscow, Perm, St. Petersburg, Ekaterinburg, 2009), “Art on Site” (Ekaterinburg, Moscow, 2008–2009), “Product Placement” under the auspices of the First Moscow Biennale of Young Art "Qui Vive?” (Moscow, 2008), the "Art-Factory” festival (Ekaterinburg, 2008, 2009), “In Transition Russia 2008” (Ekaterinburg, Moscow, 2008).

Organizer and participant of over 20 interregional and international conferences. Member of HESP programs “Alternative Culture” (2006–2009) and "Teaching the Spatial Turn: Critical Concepts for a Globalizing World” (2010 – 2012).

CURATORS OF THE BIENNIAL

Ekaterina Degot

Art historian, curator, art critic. She has a PhD in art history, is a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Arts. Senior editor of the contemporary arts section of the online portal www.openspace.ru.

She worked as a senior curator at the State Tretyakov Gallery and as an art columnist in the “Kommersant” newspaper. She taught at the European University in St. Petersburg and, as a guest professor, at various American and European universities. She currently is a professor at the Alexander Rodchenko Photography and Multimedia School in Moscow. Winner of the “Innovation” art award in the category “Curatorial Projects” for the “Kudymkar – Locomotive for the Future” project.

Her major curatorial projects are: the Russian pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2001; “Body Memory: Underwear of the Soviet Era” (City History Museum, St. Petersburg, 2000–2003, together with Julia Demidenko); “Moscow – Berlin 1947–2000” (Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, and History Museum, Moscow, 2003–2004, as one of the project's curators); “Soviet Idealism” (Musée de l'art wallon, Liege, 2005), “The Comedy: the Funny Side of a Moving Image” (Central House of Artists, Moscow, 2005); “Tony Cragg: Gravity and Tenderness” (Central House of Artists, Moscow, 2005); “Struggling for the Banner: Soviet Art Between Trotsky and Stalin” (New Manege, Moscow, 2008); “Citizens, Mind Yourselves: Dimitri Prigov” (Museum of Modern Art, Moscow, 2008); “Kudymkar – Locomotive for the Future” (Perm Art Museum, 2009); and «РЇРєС‰Рѕ/Если/If. Ukrainian Art in Transition” (PERMM Museum of Contemporary Art, Perm, 2010).

Cosmin Costinas

Curator, critic, writer. Studied history and art history at the Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Currently collaborates with the «Idea Arts + Society» (Cluj) and “Version” (Paris/Cluj) magazines. Advisory board member of the Patterns/Erste Bank Foundation, Vienna, Austria. In 2005–2007 he was an editor of the “Documenta Magazine” project (part of the “Documenta-12” exhibition, Kassel). Co-author of the novel “Philip” (2007) and author of numerous articles and reviews in professional publications in Europe and South-Eastern Asia. Since 2009 he is curator of the «BAK (Basis voor Actuele Kunst)" center for contemporary arts in Utrecht, Netherlands.

Among his recent curatorial projects are: co-curator of the “After the Happy Nineties” conference (Bucharest, Romania, 2005), curator of the “Like an Attali report, but different. On Fiction and Political Imagination” exhibition (Paris, France, 2008), of “After the Final Simplification of Ruins. Forms of historiography in given places” (Vitoria, Spain, 2009), of “The Demon of Comparisons” (Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2009), of the first solo exhibition of Rabih Mroue (Utrecht, Netherlands, 2010). Costinas lives and works in the Netherlands.

David Riff

Art critic, writer, translator. Lecturer at the Rodchenko School of Photography and Multimedia in Moscow. Editor of the contemporary arts section of the online portal www.openspace.ru. Member of the “Chto delat?” (What is to be done?) work group and co-editor of the newspaper of the same name from 2003 to 2008. He participated in the “Documenta Magazine” project (part of the “Documenta-12” exhibition, Kassel). He writes for the “Flash Art”, “Springerin”, “Rethinking Marxism”, “Third Text”, “Site”, “Framework” magazines, as well as “Moscow Art Magazine” and several other Russian publications. Together with Dmitry Gutov he contributed to the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007 with the long-term project “The Karl Marx School of the English Language”. He has shown an installation project at the “Principio Potosi” exhibition at the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid. Riff lives in Moscow and Berlin.