Editor’s Choice

Strelka Sound

There is no need to introduce Strelka, the location of so many ideas concentrated in one place on the bank of the Moskva river. Strelka Sound is another musical component that came quite logically and naturally this summer. According to Roman Mazurenko, Strelka’s director for special projects, they have been thinking about putting on a music event for over a year, but only this summer could they organize an event. There are four days of festivals, two of which take place in August and two on the first day of September. Taking part in the festival are Manicure, Midnight Juggernauts, Tesla Boy and Zola Jesus. The yard is turned into a green field with artificial but yet green and comfortable grass which makes this artistic area a small European festival with good music and a nice view onto the river. August 13 is given to two bands from Russia: Manicure and Music Zola Jesus. Born from an experimental noise-rock project, Manicure is now one of the most original new bands in Russia. The band will play tracks from their new album Grow Up that was released in June. The concert of Nika Roza Danilova, known by the stage name of Zola Jesus, will start at 9.30 p.m. Her tracks: Poor Animal, Sea Talk and I Can’t Stand It were listed among the best singles of 2010 by The New York Times and Pitchfork. Her tour plans this year are impressive: she will play at Pitchfork, Bestival, Electric Pink, Bill Chill, Hollywood Bowl and others. The first day of the autumn will be celebrated with a concert by Tesla Boy, the first Russian selfproduced band popular in Russia as well as abroad. This year the band have toured Russia and

Music Zola Jesus/Manicure August 13, 2011, Saturday, 18:00-22:00 Music Midnight Juggernauts/Tesla Boy September 1, 2011, Thursday, 18:00-23:00 Red October chocolate factory Bersenevskaya embankment 14, building 5

Europe and played with Hurts during their Russian tour. At Strelka Sound, Tesla Boy will play new tracks from their new album. Australian electronic band Midnight Jaggernauts, that will start playing at 9 p.m., gained prominence in 2006. Since then the band has released two LPs and many singles. Midnight Juggernauts headlined such festivals as Big Day Out, Electric Picnic, Lowlands, Pukkelpop, Lovebox and Rockness.

Strelka Sound at Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design

Dali Retrospective

The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts presents Salvador Dali’s retrospective. The exhibition is provided by the The Dali Theatre- Museum in Figueres, which is itself, undoubtedly the largest surrealistic object in the world. It was initiated in the building of the former Municipal Theatre or rather its ruins as the 19th century edifice was destroyed at the end of the Spanish Civil War. Here Dali decided to create his museum. The curators bring to Moscow twenty-five pictures and also about ninety graphic works along with archive photographs and other items. Dali’s major artistic periods are all reflected in the exhibition, from his earliest years when he was looking for his own way forward, and his life in Paris when he became acquainted with surrealism. This is followed by his mature years when Dali became Dali, and certainly his later experimental paintings are on the verge of traditional painting and optical illusions.

August 19-November 6 Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Main building 12, Volkonka street. 10:00-19:00, except Monday

One of the leitmotifs of the exposition is the figure of the legendary Gala-Dali’s wife Elena Dyakova, who united the art of Dali with Russia. Elena was Dali’s muse, co-thinker and model. The current retrospective is curated by specialists from the Pushkin Fine Arts, Dali Theatre-Museum and Gala-Salvador Dali Foundation and brings you the unforgettable atmosphere of the museum in Figueres-Dali’s largest. The famous muscovite, Boris Messerer, created the scenography for the exhibition.

James Turrell at Garage

Garage Center for Contemporary Culture presents the first solo exhibition in Russia by one of the world’s most important contemporary artists—James Turrell. The American artist will be the subject of a retrospective spanning 40 years, including early experiments with light projections from the 1960s, a specially commissioned Ganzfeld installation (Purusa) and Perceptual Cell (Light Rainfall), presented here for the first time. James Turrell has been creating art from light and space since the 1960s. Over nearly five decades, he has developed an extensive body of work that includes sculptures, holograms, installations, and architecture. His carefully constructed environments are catalysts for viewers to explore the phenomena of perception. By capturing and emphasizing the evanescent and refractory qualities of light, Turrell engineers works of art that must be experienced

August 1 - 21 Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture 19a Obraztsova Street, 11:00-21:00

rather than just viewed. At Garage, 15 light works, including the horizonless and imageless landscape of Purusa (2011), are on view. This newly commissioned work invites visitors to enter a completely immersive light landscape, engulfing them in a “sublime bath of light” that produces a sense of perceptual disorientation. Turrell describes this effect as “feeling with your eyes”, an experience he regards as not just aesthetic but also spiritual.

Russian National Orchestra: summer music season

The Grand Festival of the Russian National Orchestra is an annual cultural event which takes place in Moscow every September. The festival has gained fame as the best beginning of the musical season in Moscow. This year the festival is held from September 8 and features quite a variety of genres: from symphonic music, ballet, opera to jazz and more. Along with the RNO stars, the festival also includes performances of such international soloists as Sarah Chang, Eduard Radzinsky (violinist), Maxim Mogilevsky, Nino Machaidze and others. The Russian National Orchestra was started in 1990 in Moscow and for these twenty years has been listed as one of the twenty leading orchestras in the world. The first Russian orchestra to perform at the Vatican and in Israel, the RNO maintains an active international tour schedule, appearing in Europe, Asia and the Americas. Guest artists performing with the RNO on tour include conductors Vladimir Jurowski,

For schedule and tickets see www.RNO.ru Tchaikovsky Concert Hall 4/31 Triumfalnaya Square

Nicola Luisotti, Antonio Pappano, Alan Gilbert, Carlo Ponti and Patrick Summers, and soloists Martha Argerich, Yefim Bronfman, Lang Lang, Pinchas Zukerman, Sir James Galway, Joshua Bell, Itzhak Perlman, Steven Isserlis, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Simone Kermes and Renée Fleming, among many others. Popular with radio audiences worldwide, RNO concerts are regularly aired by National Public Radio in the United States and by the European Broadcasting Union. The festival takes place in the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall.

Natura Morta—classical compositions in photography

Pobeda Gallery presents its new project Natura Morta, which unites the works of seven Russian and American photographers of the still life genre. The authors are Jefferson Hayman, Paulette Tavormina, Charles Grogg, Michael Huey, Irina Polin, Vadim Gushchin, Aleksei Kiselev. The photographers instinctively try to overcome the static and “statuary” nature of such objects, not contenting themselves with the fixation of reality, but divining the vibrations of secret and invisible life. The artists rehabilitate the most common things (like tableware in Irina Polin and Michael Huey’s works or bread in Vadim Gushchin’s series). For instance, still life photographs by Paulette Tavormina, inspired by Dutch painting of the XVIIth century, are carefully composed,

August 1-September 30 Pobeda Gallery, 12:00 - 20:00 Red October Chocolate Factory Bolotnaya embankment 3, building 4

have every element rigorously put into its place. On the other hand, these works ironically use baroque fancy for allegory, referring not to universal categories, but to images from the personal experience of the artist (like the fig tree, which grew in her family garden). Another baroque technique used is trompe-l’oeil. Fruits and vegetables, looking like some decorations of an invisible counter, seem to fall out of the frame, making the compositions even more unstable.

Young Art at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art

Moscow Museum of Modern Art and Free Workshops Contemporary Art School present the annual international competition and exhibition of young art, Workshop 2011: Today/Tomorrow. The project is about time and relativity. The participants of the project show their perception of the past, present and future. The curators have realized that the younger a person is, the longer time stretches in his mind. Besides young people typically look ahead, to the future, to tomorrow. As time goes by, it shrinks and eventually disappears together with a person. The art for the project were selected by the curators of Independent Workshops of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art. More than 500 people took part in the competition, and eventually 100 works representing all kinds contemporary art media (sculpture, video art, collage, photo, painting, graphics and interactive installations) were selected. The project includes the best works of the participants of the first open regional festival of young art in Kaluga The Festival of Discoveries 2011. The Workshop also presents the project, Art House Short

Moscow Museum of Modern Art 17, Ermolaevsky lane Open: 11:00 - 19:00 Except Monday

Films, by the curator Tatyana Daniliants. For the first time, the video art festival, Now & After, is held within the Workshop exhibition. The works for this project were also selected in a competition. The selected works will be presented in the form of a video installation. Now & After is both the real and the imaginary world, where dreams come true. Within the framework of this project, the artists visualize their perception of time and space, they reflect on the past and make projections into the future.