CSAR 
Centre for Studies in Russian Art

Uzbekistan: Avant-Garde in the Desert
Form and Symbol

Opening: Tuesday 16 April 2024 at 4.30 pm
Ca' Foscari Esposizioni
Dorsoduro 3246 - Venice
Free admission

The exhibition "Uzbekistan: Avant-Garde in the Desert" brings to the Italian and international public an important albeit lesser-known page of early 20th-century art history. The exhibition highlights the connection between Russian Avant-Garde and Central Asian art with over 100 works from the Tashkent Museum and the Nukus Museum (the "Louvre of the Desert") and is curated by Silvia Burini and Giuseppe Barbieri. The subtitle, "Form and Symbol," hints at the mutual influences connecting the culture of Central Asia and the Russian historical Avant-Garde. This extraordinary selection, never previously displayed outside Uzbekistan, includes four works by Wassily Kandinsky (two oil paintings and two drawings on paper), works by Lentulov, Maškov, Popova, Rodčenko, Rozanova and by a selection of Avant-garde Orientalists. This exhibition gathers the outcome of a profound cultural and artistic dialogue between centuries-old traditions of glittering silks and architectural decorations with an innovative pictorial code that was unprecedented in the Islamic East.

Preview with the curators on Monday 8 April 2024 at 4:30 pm in the Aula Magna Silvio Trentin at Ca' Dolfin

The exhibition will be open from 17 April to 29 September 2024
Tuesday - Sunday: 10 am - 6 pm; Closed on Mondays
Free admission
Special opening in the evening of Saturday 22 June, during Art Night

Any War Any Enemy
Murals and mezzotints

Opening: Thursday, April 18, 2024 at 6:30 pm
CFZ Cultural Flow Zone - Tesa 1
Zattere al Pontelungo
Dorsoduro 1392 – Venice
Free admission
 
Any War Any Enemy presents the new work of multidisciplinary conceptual artist Lena Herzog. Curated by Silvia Burini and Giuseppe Barbieri on the occasion of the 60th Venice Art Biennale, the exhibition forms an ideal "diptych" with Last Whispers: Immersive Oratorio for Vanishing Voices, Collapsing Universes and, a Falling Tree, created in 2022 for the 59th Venice Art Biennale. Both projects reflect on the theme of extinction: that of languages in Last Whispers , and that of the entire planet in the aftermath of a possible, global nuclear warin Any War Any Enemy. A rallying cry for the suffering that every conflict inevitably provokes, the exhibition is a heartbreaking - if poetic - reflection on war and all conflicts, past, present and future, that plague many countries around the world. Like in her previous works, Herzog conceived Any War Any Enemy at the intersection of art and science, combining cutting-edge experimental techniques with centuries-old artistic practices. Through a black mirror, murals, and ten mezzotints, the project takes on a complex "multimodal" configuration. "Who is my enemy?" asks the visitor. The mirror answers.

Special event
Thursday, April 11, 2024 at 6:30 pm, CFZ Cultural Flow Zone
Talk between Lena Herzog and Flavio Gregori, director of the incroci di Civiltà festival, and presentation of the monograph Lena Herzog by Silvia Burini and Giuseppe Barbieri (Skira, Milan).

The exhibition will be open from April 11 to June 22, 2024
Monday - Saturday, 10 am - 6 pm
Sunday, 3 pm - 6 pm
Free admission

Special opening in the evening on Saturday, June 22 during Art Night
The exhibition will be closed on 25 April, 1 May and 2 June

Mapping Diaspora: Russian Art in Exile

Conceived by the Center for Studies in Russian Arts (CSAR) of the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, the project was launched last February. It serves as a platform for the gathering and, later, for the analysis of the artistic projects of those who left Russia due to the war or their political positions. It aims, first, to embrace and bring together different forms of reflection and experience on one of the most conspicuous intellectual migrations of our time. The goal of the project is literally to map (that is, “draw a map”) what has been experienced in the last year, and what has been created or is still being developed in the different fields of artistic expression. 

The project takes the form of a website (available in three languages: Russian, Italian, and English) and it is divided into five sections.

1. The first section, “Art”, presents works and projects carried out using different artistic languages made by Russian artists who emigrated.
2. The second, “ConTexts”, collects texts, unpublished or already published, by various specialists (researchers, curators, journalists, writers) who analyze the migratory phenomenon from different points of view.
3. In the third section, “Dialogues”, a list of predefined questions is proposed to which the project participants can answer extensively or schematically, allowing researchers to compare these answers. 
4. The fourth section, “Chronicle”, consists of a summary account of the events related to Russian art from February 2022 to the present.

Finally, the project hosts a ‘practical section’ – “Grants”: up-to-date information on scholarships and other opportunities in the artistic and academic fields in different countries.
At a later stage, a series of thematic exhibition projects are planned, to give the results of the project a living form.

The scientific board of the project is by Silvia Burini and Olga Shishko and is carried out in collaboration with CYLAND and Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia.
An international group of specialists is working on the project, whose task is to help establish contact with various professionals in the field of culture.

Go to the website Mapping Diaspora: Russian Art in Exile.