Proscenium

Proscenium is an exhibition about the formal and informal culture of the city of Chelyabinsk conceived and put together by local curators in collaboration with GES-2 House of Culture.

“Proscenium” is a theatrical term—it denotes the part of the stage the viewer sees during a performance. Our project, however, is not about the theatre—rather, it is about the city of Chelyabinsk: its inhabitants, its public spaces and secret streets, and its communities and the ways in which they perceive and create culture.

Selected works 

Illustration: Kirill Gorbunov

Chelyabinsk is a city with a developed theatrical, performative, and dance tradition and a varied artistic life. Some artists operate in the context of a more official scene, where one finds artists’ unions, and institutions interested in these people and their work. Other artists consider themselves a part of more underground scenes. Yet other figures travel from one scene to the next, weaving them together with the thread of their personal experience. Proscenium is dedicated to the development of the artistic processes in Chelyabinsk—spanning the normative and informal social environment, public and private spaces, private and public life.

The Proscenium project comprises five scenes. Through exhibits, documents, and materials from Chelyabinsk museums, archives, and private collections, alongside artistic works provided by their authors, each scene provides a different perspective on human life in the city and proposes a different way of perceiving urban culture. Documents and projects that arose during the Flashes and Gaps programme held in Chelyabinsk in the summer of 2023 can be seen alongside these works at GES-2.

Selected works

Ilya Remezov (b. 1900)
Flashes and Gaps
2023
Video

Flashes and Gaps is a series by the young director Ilya Remezov shot in Chelyabinsk in the summer of 2023 from the perspective of a silent but attentive observer of the events of the eponymous Flashes and Gaps project.

Aleksandr Deineka (1899–1969)
At the Women’s Meeting
1937
Oil on canvas

One of the key works in the Chelyabinsk State Museum of Fine Arts’ collection, At the Women’s Meeting has formed part of the background to artistic life in the city of Chelyabinsk since 1952.

Vyacheslav Dolgopolov
Fragment from the Time Machine video
2022
Video documentation of the preparation of the sets for a party

The cardboard DMC DeLorean car formed a part of the sets for a series of themed techno nights run by DJ1985RU in Chelyabinsk. In 2022, like the heroes of the film Back to the Future, participants were meant to travel thirty years back in time and spend an evening in the style of the London raves of the early 1990s.

Ivan Minevtsev (b. 1988)
Irina Vaskovskaya (b. 1981)
Ilya Remezov (b. 1990)
I’ll Show You Something, Let’s Go
2023
Audioshow

Listen [01:27]

Chamber version of the outdoor audio-play/city-walk that formed a part of the Flashes and Gaps programme in 2023. The performance was based on interviews and memories of residents of the Leninsky district of Chelyabinsk.

Photo: Daniil Annenkov

Authors and artists

Flashes and Gaps became part of the GES-2: Cities, a programme designed to develop and find new forms of cooperation between artists and city communities in different regions of Russia. The partners of the programme are affiliated companies of NOVATEK which actively participate in the cultural and social life of the cities where they work.

Marina Altukhova, Olga Antipina, Viktor Antonov, Vardkes Avakyan, Leysan Azamatova, Natalia Brezhneva, Anastasia Chernikova, Alexander Danilov, Alexandr Deyneka, DJ1985RU, Vyacheslav Dolgopolov, Daria Fedorova (Amelansher), Felipe93, Alexandra Filimonova, Ilya Frolov, Lev Gutovsky, Aidar Ishemgulov, Dmitry Kaigorodov and Irina Migranova, Yulia Khisamutdinova, Pavel Khodaev, Tatiana Kilmetova, Sofia Kobozeva, Maria Komadei, Lyudmila Konstantinovich, Yulia Krayushkina, Alexander Kudryavtsev, Victoria Kuzmina, Yan Lyubimov, Elena Maslova, Metagrafika (Andrey Bolshakov and Nikita Morozov), Ivan Michurin, Milena Mikova, Ivan Minevtsev, Philip Mustafin, Vasily Neyasov, HXA (New Art Ensemble), Nikolay Panafidin, Ivan Pishchalkin, Boris Plenkin, Igor Prokopyev, Olga Ralnikova, Ilya Remezov, Marina Rohmistrova, Nikolay Rusakov, Evgeny Ryzhenkov, Anastasia Savenko, Nadezhda Sharova, Olesya Shestakova, Nikolay Stomarev, Ekaterina Sukhanova, Polina Sukhova, Anatoly Sulenyov, Alexei Syrov, Svetlana Utkina, Irina Vaskovskaya, Namor Votilav, Ekaterina Yudina, Pavel Zhavoronkov

Flashes and Gaps project laboratory experts in Chelyabinsk

Ekaterina Galanova, Marina Izhetskaya (Careful Movements choreographic laboratory); Irina Klimina, Georgy Kravchenko, Lyubov Magazova (Diaries of Observatino laboratory of design and illustration); Gleb Glonti, Yulia Semeikina, Katya Vasileva (Random Routes public art laboratory); Olga Antipina, Darya Fedorova (Amelansher), Yan Lyubimov (Fruits and Traces cyanotype, monotype, and automatic writing laboratory); Aleksandra Dudarenko, Anastasia Gvozdeva, Veronica Molchanova (children’s anthropological laboratory in preparation of the I’ll Show You Something, Let’s Go outdoor audio-play.

Curators

Yaroslav Aleshin, Sergey Babkin, Anna Legotina, Galina Luppo, Alexandra Tumarkina, Alisa Zhikhareva

Architects

NORMA

Producers

Dmitry Ryabkov, Angelina Vorona

Technical production

Andrey Belov, Artem Kanifatov, Maxim Lapshin, Pavel Luzhin

Art logistics and registration

Daria Krivtsova, Sofya Lazareva, Ekaterina Sofronova

Accessibility and inclusion curators

Sasha Anikushin, Vlad Kolesnikov, Oksana Osadchaya, Vera Zamyslova

Graphic design

Kirill Gorbunov

Media specialist

Oksana Smirnova

The exhibition is organised in collaboration with

Chelyabinsk Centre for Historical and Cultural Heritage
Chelyabinsk State Museum of Fine Arts
Chelyabinsk Theatre of Contemporary Dance
Klopovnik curatorial group