(by Mattia Bernardo Bagnoli) (ANSA) – MOSCOW, 03 DEC – Over seven years of work, 30 thousand square meters of space recovered on four levels, no saving of resources (we are talking about a billion euro investment). It is the GES-2 in Moscow, the new temple of Russian contemporary art (but of international level) born thanks to the generosity of Leonid Mikhelson, multimillionaire and patron of Novatek, the vision of Teresa Mavica, very Italian director of the VAC foundation, as well as the genius by Renzo Piano, author of the conversion project. Good. Crazy numbers that finally, from tomorrow, will meet people, with the opening to the public of this extraordinary place. Which will be much more than a museum.
“The GES-2 represents a new concept of cultural space, which aims to bring people together”, explains Teresa Mavica. “A place like this, which recovers the idea of the House of Culture, present in Russia well before the advent of communism, gives us the opportunity to collaborate: a traditional museum is used to admire art, here people come to participate, to be part of a process “. The houses of culture, in fact, became the first example of multidisciplinary institutions in Russia, hosting libraries, galleries, theaters, creative workshops, concert halls, museums, cinemas and even schools under one roof. “Through this approach”, notes the slogan of the inauguration, “cultural activity was made accessible to a wider audience and the public was offered a place for creativity: art was no longer perceived as elitist but designed to be organically inclusive “.
The GES-2 is exactly that. In the structure there are cafes and restaurants, cinemas, areas for concerts, areas for workshops, exhibition halls and so on and so forth. The next five seasons have already been outlined (each lasts about six months) and are grouped under the title ‘Holy Barbarians’. And it is immediately clear that experimentation is at home here.
The 2021-2022 program opens with the Santa Barbara project by Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson. The subtitle is intriguing. “How not to be colonized?”. Santa Barbara is the title of an American television series that aired in Russia a week after the fall of the Soviet Union, practically the first close encounter of the third kind between homo sovieticus and Western hyper-capitalist-consumerist culture. “It was like the alien landing,” recalls Katia Chuchalina, the chief curator of GES-2. The exercise then revolves around a question: how to build a dialogue with Western culture without losing one’s voice? If desired, it is precisely the history of these last 30 years and now it will be the task of a new generation of artists to arrive at a synthesis.
Meanwhile, to celebrate that milestone, under the direction of Kjartansson a professional crew, led by director Ása Helga Hjörleifsdóttir, will stage, shoot and distribute around 100 episodes of the soap opera (but in Russian). Shooting for each episode must be completed in one day.
The actors (professionals and amateurs) will work as if they were in a theater: all the scenes will be shot in a single take. The sets, costumes and props in each episode reproduce those used in the original serial.
Here, this is GES-2. And in fact, we are only at the beginning.
This beautiful box now needs to be filled. “We will do it with new productions of different artistic disciplines”, underlines the artistic director Francesco Manacorda. “We want to bring not only visual art but also cinema, dance, theater, poetry in complete dialogue with each other and with the Moscow public”. (HANDLE).
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Source From: Ansa
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