‘Diversity United’ on show in Moscow despite political hurdles

The “Diversity United” exhibition has now opened its doors to the Russian public — and that is a cause for celebration for the international team organizing the event.

While the show was on display at Berlin’s Tempelhof Airport from June to October 2021, it sparked a great deal of interest, attracting well over 50,000 visitors.

And yet it was feared that the works, whose content revolves around themes such as migration, freedom, resistance, would not be allowed to travel to Moscow as originally intended.

Diverse and united Europe

It is truly an extraordinary exhibition, and one of superlatives: composed of around 90 artists from 34 countries, showing some 400 works.

Renowned artists such as Gerhard Richter, Anselm Kiefer and Georg Baselitz are represented, as are Sejla Kameric, Gilbert & George, Olafur Eliasson, Monica Bonvicini, Katharina Sieverding and Boris Mikhailov. Around a third of the works were created specifically for the show.

This work by artist group Slaves and Tatars is titled ‘Mystical Protest’

The lavish and costly “Diversity United” exhibition tackles a major subject: Europe. The curators have said they are searching “for the essence of the complex, fragile and changing project” that constitutes Europe.

Now, visitors to the show in Moscow can also delve into the subject.

“I am very happy and proud that our exhibition is being presented in the iconic rooms of the New Tretyakov Gallery,” a premier venue of 20th-century art in Moscow, says Walter Smerling. The chairman of the Bonn, Germany-based Foundation for Art and Culture is responsible for organizing the huge show with a budget in the mid-seven-figure range. The exhibition opening in Moscow is “a symbol of an open and future-oriented society,” he adds.

Likewise, the show is “an important sign of solidarity of the arts and cultural scene,” which in today’s “pandemic times, all the more important in view of the travel difficulties,” Selfira Tregulova, general director of the Tretyakov Gallery told DW on the sidelines of the opening on November 22 in Moscow. 

Art scholar Tregulova said the current show recalls the large international dialogue exhibitions that took place in the 1980s and 1990s.

In this case, many of the works reflect on contemporary issues, such as Russian artist Ekaterina Muromtseva’s huge watercolor series “Picketing” about protest culture. It features larger-than-life, blood-red figures, and calls for people to take a stand on resistance.

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  Political artworks at ‘Diversity United’ exhibition

  Sejla Kameric: ‘Liberty’

  The ideal of Enlightenment is spelled out in bright white neon letters. They stand out against a bare wall and stone floor, reminiscent of the inner courtyard of a prison. The association feels strengthened by the spikes that are typically used as a bird deterrent on building ledges and commercial signage. Is it liberty’s way of protecting itself or is the message turned into an empty phrase?

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  Political artworks at ‘Diversity United’ exhibition

  Ekaterina Muromtseva: ‘Picket’

  Ekaterina Muromtseva is a Russian artist who lives and works in Moscow. Her posters are a testimony to the political unrest in her home country. Her larger-than-life, blood-red figures lead viewers to ask themselves whether they should remain distant observers of the protests or rather join in on them.

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  Political artworks at ‘Diversity United’ exhibition

  Mona Hatoum: ‘Remains to Be Seen’

  The Lebanon-born artist Mona Hatoum often works with allegories. In this work, the remains of a building “hang by a thread,” with the symmetrical arrangement of the ropes contrasting with the fragmented stones. The collapse is in constant suspension, while the remains can still be seen.

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  Political artworks at ‘Diversity United’ exhibition

  Anselm Kiefer: ‘Winterreise’

  From a distance, it looks like a large-scale painting, but “Winterreise” (Winter Journey) is actually a stage installation. In this grim and warlike landscape, Anselm Kiefer refers to representatives of German Romanticism such as Madame de Staël or Robert Schubert on snow-covered signs, while the name of the Red Army Faction terrorist Ulrike Meinhof appears on a bed on wheels.

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  Political artworks at ‘Diversity United’ exhibition

  Olga Chernysheva: ‘On the Sidelines’

  In the former Soviet Union, workers were sometimes paid in kind. These chandeliers were given to the employees of a factory where they were made, as a form of payment. But they ended up on the side of the road. Chernysheva’s seemingly surrealistic works document the poetry of everyday life, while commenting on society.

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  Political artworks at ‘Diversity United’ exhibition

  Patricia Kaersenhout: ‘Mea Culpa’

  In her work, Dutch artist Patricia Kaersenhout focuses on questions of power and guilt. In “Me Culpa” she depicts people in business suits on their hands and knees, crawling in penance as defined by a Christian tradition through which pilgrims demonstrated their devotion to God through physical suffering.

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  Political artworks at ‘Diversity United’ exhibition

  Monica Bonvicini: ‘Light Me Black’

  The polarization of society can be observed around the world; too often, opinions on current issues seem to be divided into black and white categories. With this in mind, the Berlin-based artist Monica Bonvicini brings opposites together. The white neon tubes are dazzling, but can also be understood as a symbol of the Enlightenment. “Light Me Black” is a call to explore paradoxes and gray areas.

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  Political artworks at ‘Diversity United’ exhibition

  Lucy + Jorge Orta: ‘Antarctic Village No borders’

  For artist duo Lucy + Jorge Orta, the polar continent around the South Pole embodies utopian ideals: Despite different political systems, the signatory states of the Antarctic Treaty have committed to peaceful coexistence, to collaboration on scientific projects and to the preservation of Antarctica’s natural resources. The tents with different flags stand for a peaceful world without borders.

  Author: Matthias Beckonert

Originally, “Diversity United” was intended as a continuation of the major exhibition projects such as “Moscow-Berlin” and “Moscow-Paris.” This time, too, there is a Moscow-Berlin-Paris axis.

At the beginning of the perestroika restructuring reforms in the 1980s, these exhibitions were an important sign of opening and a central experience for many Russians with contemporary artistic positions, says Tregulova. She now hopes that “Diversity United” will have a similar effect.

The challenges of the exhibition

Getting the exhibition up and running in Moscow was a major endeavor. One major hurdle, of course, has been the COVID pandemic. Another has been the increasingly harsh political climate in Russia.

Three heads of state had agreed to take on the patronage of “United Diversity”: Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Emmanuel Macron and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. After all, “Diversity United” was conceived as a European project on several levels. Not only were artists from a wide variety of countries to be represented to reflect “the artistic face of Europe,” as the show is subtitled. Crucially, the idea was also that the exhibition would travel throughout Europe.

British artist duo Gilbert & George show their work ‘AHEM’

The opening planned for November 2020 in Moscow had to be canceled due to pandemic. The original second station — Berlin — stepped up and showed “Diversity United” first.

The opening in June 2021 was then overshadowed by a political controversy: Shortly before the kick-off, a number of German-Russian organizations belonging to the Petersburg Dialogue were declared undesirable in Russia. This forum, once founded by Vladimir Putin and former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, sees itself as a platform for cooperation between the civil societies of the two countries.

‘Diversity United’ aims to promote dialogue

At the time, the organizers emphasized that the attitude of the Russian government was unacceptable.

Now, the wording has changed: Art is to be understood as a “unique opportunity” to remain in exchange and, according to Smerling, “with the help of artists, to promote discussions that have not previously existed in Russia in this way — for example,

It is particularly important for Russia to use this exhibition to showcase Europe’s diversity and diversity as something positive, says Sergey Fofanov, the show’s Russian curator. “Russia is part of European culture and tradition. We must not reject each other, but seek dialogue. Only in this way will our common culture survive.”

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier visited the opening of “Diversity United” in Berlin in June, praising the exhibition as “an expression of the self-confidence of art and artists in Europe.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin, for his part, was not spotted at the show’s opening in Moscow.

The exhibition “Diversity United” is on display, and accompanied by a host of events, in Moscow from November 23, 2021-March 13, 2022. It will then travel on to Paris.

This article has been translated from German.

‘Diversity United’ on show in Moscow despite political hurdles
Source: Pinoy Pop News