BEAUTY AND THE BEAST PROJECT

Project organisators: German cultural centre Goethe-Institut, National Centre for Contemporary Arts
Project curator: Irina Chesnokova (KB NCCA)

26 September – 25 October, 2009 in the frames of special programme of the Third Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art a final Russian-German exhibition of the project «Art on Site» will take place. The Kaliningrad branch of NCCA presents Beauty and the Beast project of the art duo EMPFANGSHALLE (Corbinian Böhm and Michael Gruber) from Munich, Germany.

The project is realized in the frames of the international programme Art on Site, initiated by German cultural centre Goethe-Institut and National Centre for Contemporary Arts. The programme stimulates creation of new art works with the help of immersion of German artists into an unknown urban environment. It helps to look at Ekaterinburg, Kaliningrad, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod and Sankt-Petersburg through the prism of each author.

Source — www.goethe.de/artonsite

Beauty and the Beast by the art duo Empfangshalle is a project about Kaliningrad and perception of Beauty. The main part of the project, a photo session, took place from 18 till 20 of June, 2009 on the territory of the House of Soviets, which earned notoriety as one on the worst examples of post-war Soviet achitecture. Artists invited pairs with their favorite cars to the project. Photographs captured images of beautiful girls and posh cars against the modern «Beast». The best photo of the project was defined by open voting on the Internet portal www.kaliningradcity.ru. Darya Malisheva was chosen as a winner of the project. Her photo would be a basis for the biggest amber panel in the world, (230×133,5 cm), made by the art duo with the help of amber painters Alexander Jurizin and Viktor Ivanov, Kaliningrad.

«Munich art duo Empfangshalle makes their entire projects in public environment, the projects are never about environment as such, but ever about its inhabitants. For them, Art on Site is always art of someone’s residence. Empfangshalle are ironical researchers of public opinion and mood. Their project in Kaliningrad resulted in a social study, an attempt to set a trap for genius loci, made of inhabitants’ psyches».

Anna Matveeva, art critic

Initially all the projects, realized in the frames of Art on Site programme were presented successfully in spring-summer 2009 in five Russian cities, where the artists were hosted. The presentation of Beauty and the Beast project took place in the Amber Museum in August 2009. In September a Moscow visitor also had a chance to watch all these and some more works in the same art space. In the frames of the Moscow exhibition large-scale installations, objects, video, photographs and the biggest amber panel in the world will be shown.

The opening took place on 26^th September together with all artists of the project. Works of Russian artists, regular residents of the cities, where the project was realized, were also included into the exhibition. Oleg Blyablyas with the Amber Land auteur project represented Kaliningrad.

28 September 2009, a round table conference with all the artists and curators of the project will be held in the National Centre for Contemporary Arts in Moscow.

The project is realized with the financial assistance of the European Union in the frames of launching initiatives in cooperation in the area of culture between the European Union and Russia.

Project partner – KaliningradCity International Web Portal

Art on Site project (www.goethe.de/artonsite)

The Third Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (www.3rd.moscowbiennale.ru)