The Ural Industrial Biennial is not only an event unique in its concept and scale; it is also an important resource for regional development. The biennial engages with number of important issues faced by the city and re-articulates them through the medium of contemporary art. As an important artistic and cultural event, the Biennial becomes a point of attraction for a large audience and draws it into the biennial movement, while putting Ekaterinburg on the global biennial map.
The 2nd biennial will depart from the main themes of the 1st biennial, which revolved around the industrial and the post-industrial, the material and the symbolic; it will consider the possibilities of moving beyond the traditional opposition of production and consumption in artistic, cultural and social spheres and explore the potential of (non)-exhibition spaces appropriated by contemporary art.
The strategies of the 2012 Ural Industrial Biennial:
- Expanding the project’s geography (to cover the Ural Federal District);
- New project structure (main project, special projects, parallel program, art-residencies, the intellectual platform);
- Inter-biennial partnership (with ZERO1 Biennial, San Jose, USA);
- Intellectual Platform (a series of events in different formats designed to involve international expert community in discussing the problems put forward by the biennial)
- Medialization of the Biennial (creation of mobile applications and a ‘media capsule’ of the Biennial based on ISO containers);
- Invited projects (projects developed by the «Garage» Center for Contemporary Culture and the «Winzavod» Center for Contemporary Art);
- Joint projects with classical institutions (as part of a centennial celebrations of the Ekaterinburg State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater, the Theater’s art director will stage a special ballet for one of the biennial’s industrial venues).
Parallel program:
- IN-HOUSE PROJECTS OF MUSEUMS
Ekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts
The «Metenkov House» Museum of Photography
Sverdlovsk Regional Research Library named after V.G. Belinsky
Joint Museum of Ural Writers
The «Ural Literary Life in XX Century» Museum
Sverdlovsk Regional Museum
Center Of Contemporary Culture, Ural Federal University
Ekaterinburg Gallery of Contemporary Art - INVITED PROJECTS
«Garage» Center For Contemporary Culture
WINZAVOD Center For Contemporary Art
Forum of Museum projects
CHRISTIE’S Auction House - Artist residences:
– Pervouralsk Factory of Mining Equipment OJSC
– Magnezit Group (Satka) OJSC – land art project
– «Titanium Valley» Special Economic Zone (Salda) – joint project with ZERO1 Biennial (San Jose, California, The Silicon Valley)
– Nizhniy Tagil Museum-Factory
– Nevyansk State Museum of History and Architecture
– «Viz-Steel» LLC
Intellectual Platform:
– BIENNIAL SYMPOSIUM (Dates: September 12 – 14, 2012)Venue – Biennial’s Main
Project exhibition site
– POST-BIENNIAL WORKSHOP (Dates: October 22, 2012)
Venue – Government of the Sverdlovsk Region
– ONLINE PROJECT OF THE 2nd URAL BIENNIAL (Dates: April 1 – September 12, 2012)