Muzeon
28.07.2023 2023-11-30 21:15Muzeon
Muzeon Experimental Center
Muzeon Experimental Centre is an alternative exhibition space, an open library, a lecture hall, and a platform for concerts and performative events. Muzeon promotes the policy of self-organization, self-education, mutual exchange of experience and skills.
The aim of Muzeon Experimental Centre is to create an open non-censoring environment for artistic communities in Odessa and to support young authors in realizing individual and group projects.
Over the course of a year and a half since its opening in December 2019, Muzeon has implemented 9 exhibition projects (mostly featuring young artists from Odessa) and more than 20 public events, including workshops, lectures, and film screenings. In the summer of 2021, Muzeon implemented the first part of the lecture series “AN/ARCHIVE”, dedicated to the activities of contemporary archivists, publishers, and researchers who are revitalizing lost areas of local culture.
Project Ideology
Muzeon Experimental Centre constructs its projects based on several foundational principles:
- Examining artistic traditions of the past within the context of contemporary art.
- Exploring local communities, subcultures, and territories.
- Interest in “phasmology” — the search for traces of the past that remain on objects, and the aestheticization of the semi-living state that an artwork enters when placed within the museum’s space.
This approach aims to eliminate potential hierarchies between periods and art movements, as well as between generations of artists. In other words, it presents art as a horizontal line where all elements are equal, and chronological distinctions become conditional.
MUZEON
Library
In November 2020, Muzeon opened its library, which is based on the collection of books from the Museum of Odesa Modern Art, contemporary Ukrainian publications related to culture and art, as well as a variety of zines, art books, and underground publications.
The center’s library boasts over 400 publications, including books dedicated to the history and theory of art, catalogs of contemporary Ukrainian and prominent international artists, contemporary periodicals, and underground self-published works. The library usage operates on a “free donation” basis, allowing anyone to freely spend time in the reading room during the working week, utilizing it as a co-working space, a meeting place, a venue for self-education, inspiration, and more.
To purchase art books, zines, physical audio releases, as well as objects and posters, you can visit Muzeon Store: https://www.instagram.com/muzeon.store/
Other Museums
Industrial Fairy Tale
The first exhibition at Muzeon Experimental Centre was the project “Індустріальна казка” (Industrial Fairy Tale) by Odesa sculptor Vasya Dmytryk, dedicated to the history of the Odesa Shipyard SRZ-2. For his artworks, the author utilized wooden models and casting molds found on the factory premises (where Vasya set up his workshop), preserving the original texture of the material. Removed from their original context, these objects in the gallery space resembled ancient idols, and the utilitarian structure of the factory details allowed for the contemplation of sacred geometry.
In October 2020, this project in an expanded form was presented at the Dymchuk Gallery.
AMPER37SAND
The exhibition “AMPER37SAND” was dedicated to exploring the subcultural community of Odesa. For many years, R37 has concealed their true identity, yet despite this, they hold a longstanding and controversial reputation in the history of local graffiti culture. The experience of working with this artist became an attempt to museumify someone who wishes to remain anonymous. Alongside R37’s own works, the exhibition featured pieces created in collaboration with various generations of Odesa writers and painters, as well as objects and artworks from other authors that were discovered by R37 under different circumstances. These items are preserved in their collection as artifacts of the history of the Odesa graffiti community.
P-BRANE
Elsa Quentin is an artist and professor of visual arts from France who lives and works in Odesa. Her art-research project “P-BRANE” emerged from Elsa’s exploration of the peculiarities of Tver icons from the 13th to 16th centuries. The artist created a series of works in which she applied compositional techniques of Tver icons, deconstructing and reconstructing them in the form of abstract color zones. Occasionally, her works feature figurative elements such as towers and buildings, shadows of inclined figures, or specific images like the descent of the Holy Fire.
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