(Source: http://mamm-mdf.ru)

MAMM presents an exhibition of works created by young artists participating in the Vladimir Smirnov and Konstantin Sorokin Foundation educational program.

According to the model proposed by foundation, over the last year students from leading Russian contemporary art schools were guided by a young, invited curator, as they prepared projects and works united by a common topic. Curator Vladimir Logutov suggested in 2012 to his protégés from the Institute of Contemporary Art, the A. Rodchenko School of Photography and Multimedia and the St. Petersburg Institute Pro Arte considering and visualizing the links between artworks and the viewer. What are the options for this dialogue and why communication difficulties do occur, thereby approaching the answer to a key issue that any museum visitor faces – how to view and comprehend contemporary art. 

Young artists examine diverse aspects of these relations, striving to formalize them as much as possible, establish a code-system and ‘rules’ of visual perception. They expose important 20th century works (from Malevich’s ‘Black Square’ to Damien Hirst’s ‘Skull’) to a comprehensive psychoanalytical examination. They observe the public’s reaction to the abnormal hiding or disappearance of a picture (as in the works of I. Tsykhanskaya and P. Kiryusha). They test the durability of our almost sacral attitude to a museum exhibit, suggesting to take it off the wall and to chop into tiny pieces. 

Actions happening on “Why Do We Go To Exhibitions” can scarcely be described in the terms of institutional criticism. Young artists put their question in a more holistic manner: they reach new interactivity forms, appeal for greater involvement of viewers. Moreover, they alter expositional rules and genres.

The exhibition becomes an active, mobile substance and presupposes an extremely diverse range of media, pulling scientific and technological achievements into the kingdom of art with greater persistence.