Evgeniya Kikodze
«A man has few ideas in life now: we can’t talk about the sacred things, about metaphysics. Very many things have left because of the new life, they don’t belong longer to us, all these discourses, these ways of speaking. If something today can stop us from becoming absolute consumers, then it’s contemporary art. This is the antidote for the idea of fast consumption, because contemporary art speaks a different language than mass culture. » (Evgenia Kikodze, DEUTSCHE WELLE)
«There are only stamps which stayed from great art works in our era of "technical reproducibility", but I am very upset when people are satisfied with this and agree to give these things to mass culture. They say: "There’s no beauty anymore, so let the designers do it. There’s no beautiful people anymore - let them deal with gloss". But why should we retreat, why should we sit in a corner while they dance in our ballrooms? Yes, we can’t do anymore some things, because temples, for example, are no longer an art territory. But this only means that we need to rebuild space so that we can do things that we can. » (Evgenia Kikodze, Aroundart)
Art historian, art critic, curator, the head of the Contemporary Moscow Department at The Museum of Moscow.
Graduated from the Moscow State University in 1989, Arts history specialization.
Worked as a researcher at The State Tretyakov Gallery, managed the studios of the National Center for Contemporary Art, ex art director of the Contemporary City Foundation, ex art director of the Guelman Gallery, curated the art residence ShargorodRafinad.
Since 2013 has headed the department of contemporary Moscow at the Museum of Moscow where participated in organizing of many important exhibitions including ‘Moscow: elusive reality’ by Alexander Vinogradov and Vladimir Dubosarsky, ‘Upstairs’, ‘Another capital’ (the first big exhibition of Saint Petersburg contemporary art in Moscow), ‘Urbanism: city in my mind’, ‘Soviet Childhood’, IV International Biennal of Young Art.
Selected projects:
2006 — Modus R. Modern Russian formalism (together with Olesya Turkina). Exhibition of 20 Russian artists at the Art Basel fair in Miami. Newton bilding. Miami Beach, United States
2007 — Urbanistic formalism. Within the framework of the 2nd Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, the Moscow Museum of Modern Art. Moscow, Russia
2007 — Who is afraid? Personal exhibition of George Pusenkoff (together with Olesya Turkina). Moscow Museum of Modern Art. Moscow, Russia
2009 — Transfer. International exhibition project within the framework of the festival "One Six Plus" (Together with Antonio Jeusa). M'ARS. Moscow, Russia
2010 — Workers and Philosophers (together with Alexandra Fo). International project within the framework of the Russia-France Year. School of Management Skolkovo. Moscow, Russia
2011 — Ultimate / Concrete. The new canon. The exhibition of modern abstraction. The Perm Museum of Modern Art PERMM. Perm, Russia
2011 — Rendering: Vika Shumskaya / Vlad Yurashko. Elena Berezkin's Foundation for Support of Visual Arts ERA. Moscow, Russia
2011 — Cosmos of Yuri Zlotnikov. Moscow Museum of Modern Art. Moscow, Russia
2011 — Matter. Painting by Alena Kirtsova. Moscow Museum of Modern Art. Moscow, Russia
2012 — "The Saturnalia. Young Russian art”. Tbilisi, Batumi, Georgia
2012 — Nikita Alekseev "Paper Chapels". Gridchinhall. Russia
2013 — "rotective Screens" (R. Mokrov and S. Motolyanets). Gallery Nina Due. Milan, Italy
2014 — Upstairs. Museum of Moscow. Moscow, Russia
2014 — Another capital (together with O. Turkina). The first big show of St. Petersburg contemporary art in Moscow. Museum of Moscow. Moscow, Russia
2014 — Painting Expansion (together with A. Osmolovsky). Museum of Moscow. Moscow, Russia
2015 — “Andrei Grositsky. Eighty. Archeology of view" (together with S. Popov). Moscow, Russia
2015 — FOCUS. Exhibition of Sergey Bratkov’s workshop students. Museum of Moscow. Moscow, Russia
2015 — 25 years of the gallery "Coat". Moscow Museum of Moscow. Moscow, Russia
2015 — #SoftNorm. International exhibition project within the framework of the festival "One Six Plus" (Jointly with Antonio Geusa). Artplay. Moscow, Russia
2016 — City – to the artists, artists – to the city (communicating vessels). Exhibition of students of new art schools of the capital (Free Workshops, ICA, Rodchenko School, MARS, Cinema School, British School of Design). Museum of Moscow. Moscow, Russia
2016-2017 — Moscow Thaw: 1953-1968 (Together with A. Selivanova, S. Nevsky, M. Semenov and O. Rosenblum). Museum of Moscow. Moscow, Russia
2017 — Semyon Fybisovich: My Moscow. Museum of Moscow. Moscow, Russia
2017 — Journey to the Center of the Earth. International exhibition project within the framework of the festival "One Six Plus" (Together with Antonio Jeusa). Artplay. Moscow, Russia
2018 — Dmitry Tsvetkov: Moscow's Cabinets. Museum of Moscow. Moscow, Russia
Education and professional activities:
Graduated from the Moscow State University in 1989, Arts history specialization.
Researcher at The State Tretyakov Gallery from 1989 to 1990
Researcher of the contemporary art department of the State Tsaritsyno Museum from 1990 to 1994
Had an intership at National Gallery Jeu de Paume, Paris within the framework of «Courant d’Est» program in 1993.
The Member of the Art historians Association from 1993.
Post-graduate student of the Department of History of Foreign Art at the Faculty of History of the Moscow State University from 1994 to 1998.
The member of AICA (Association International of Contemporary Art) since 1996.
The editorial staff of the magazine "Art" (Iskusstvo), Moscow from 1998 to 2001.
Head of the painters studios department of the National Center for Contemporary Art from 2001 to 2002.
Art director of M. Gelman Gallery from 2002 to 2004.
Curator of the Modern City Foundation from 2005 to 2006.
Art director of the gallery “Guelman Projects” from 2008 to 2009.
Curator of the Art Residency Shargorod (together with Antonio Geus) since 2008.
Head of the department "Modern Moscow" of the Moscow Museum since 2013.
Lecturer of the Rodchenko Moscow School of Photography and Multimedia, course "Basic Art Strategies in Contemporary Art".
Member of the Expert Council of the Russian investment art rating 49ART 2017-2019.