Ural Industrial Biennale Announced Its Venue

Image courtesy of Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art

5th Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art
Immortality
Professional Preview: September 10 – September 11, 2019
http://uralbiennale.ru/en

At the press conference devoted to the 5th Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art, it was announced that it will be held at the Ural Optical and Mechanical Plant.  Among the participants of the press conference were Alisa Prudnikova, Commissioner of the Biennial, Xiaoyu Weng, curator of the Biennial’s main project; as well as a representative of Sverdlovsk Region and Ekaterinburg city government.

The Ural Optical and Mechanical Plant named after Mr. E.S. Yalamov will be the venue of the 5th Ural Industrial Biennale. The plant is a part of Shvabe Holding that belongs to the Rostec Corporation and is one of the largest enterprises in the optical industry in Russia.

The plant is also known for its Ekran screening projectors and Naturalist microscopes, known to everyone since their childhood days. The plant is currently being modernized, which means some of its buildings will be free and able to accept the exhibition project and huge numbers of participants.

Alisa Prudnikova, Commissioner of the Ural Industrial Biennale and Director for Regional Development of ROSIZO says:

“We planned to set up the main project at the existing plant starting from the 1st Biennale in 2010. In 2019 our dreams will come true! The 5th Ural Industrial Biennale will be taking place at this still-operating plant, and we are really happy that it will be the Ural Optical and Mechanical Plant. In addition to its production specifics, the plant is interesting for its architecture, as an example of Soviet modernism. The Ural Biennale wants to show off the factory building to the city. As part of our research project, we will tell the plant’s most interesting stories and hope to put this building on the cultural map of the city.”

Also it was announced at the press conference that Artist-in-Residence programme will be re-launched and curated by Christina Gorlanova, the head of the “Metenkov House” Photography Museum. As reported earlier, the Ural Biennale plans to partner with the Istanbul Biennale. For that reason direct flights between Yekaterinburg and Istanbul will be established. A new format of an intellectual platform will also be set up, which includes a series of lectures, an international symposium, and a large educational program for general public.

The Ural Biennale will be devoted to the multifaceted topic of immortality.

In its 5th edition, the Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art explores concepts of Immortality. The biennial team has provided the interpretations and some of them are:

–human immortality as the natural turning point of technological progress
–the immortality of the social orders, produced by the entrenched power structures
–the possibility of “stopping” the universal clock and the re-evaluation of the temporal experience associated with the increasingly synchronized global condition
–the investigation of the “deep-time” concept and the relations between man and the geologic “earth,” the history and the material reality
–the notion of “post-human,” its possible ethos, and corporeality
–the alchemic quest for reestablishing cosmic relationships

Unified by this conceptual framework, the biennial provides various narratives through:

–the Main Project
–the Artist-in-residence program
–the Intellectual platform
–the Art mediation program
–the Parallel program
and the Special projects in the industrial cities of the region

The selection committee has appointed Xiaoyu Weng as the curator of the Main Project.

Main Project and venue
Curated by Xiaoyu Weng, the exhibition departs from a series of enquires such as how to rediscover different traditions of technological consciousness? What does the anticipation of the homo deus say about humanity? What are the systematic paradoxes between universalism and universalization? Is it still possible to imagine different forms of utopia? The exhibition considers a constellation of aesthetic, historical, political, and philosophical propositions that not only shape but also destabilize our understanding of immortality. In particular, the Main Project engages critical reflections on the cultural metaphors of immortality and our imaginations of the future. Perhaps a more crucial question shall be raised: how can we overcome, not death, but immortality?

The Main Project will take place at the Ural Optical and Mechanical Plant in Ekaterinburg. The title, theses and artist selection will be published at a later date.

Curator
Xiaoyu Weng is an Associate Curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. In 2015, she was appointed to spearhead The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Chinese Art Initiative. At the Guggenheim, she has curated the exhibitions Tales of Our Time (2016–17) and One Hand Clapping (2018). Previously, Weng served as the founding director of the Kadist Art Foundation’s Asia Programs (Paris and San Francisco) and as a curator at the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts (San Francisco). She has also curated exhibitions and projects at Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo (Bergamo), Guangdong Times Museum (Guangzhou), Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art (Rotterdam), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco), among many others.

Born in Shanghai, Xiaoyu Weng holds a BA in Art History from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing and a MA in Curatorial Practice from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco. Weng is the recipient of the 2017 Visionary Awards, which are presented by Art in General, New York, to highlight work that champions the transformative power of art and that nurtures and supports diverse artistic talents. She was also the winner of the eighth edition of Premio Lorenzo Bonald per L’Arte Enterprize for international curators in 2015.