Date: 9.10.2022, 19:00 Duration: 60 min Location: Composers Union of Armenia Language of presentation — English Georgy (Georges) Bogdanovich Yakulov, a Russian painter, graphic artist and theater artist, was born on 2 January 1884 in Tbilisi and died on 28 December 1928 in Yerevan. His family was Armenian. After his father’s death in 1893 his mother moved to Moscow with her three children. Here Georgy first studied at the Lazarev Institute of Oriental Languages, then in 1901 at the Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, from which he was expelled two years later. He did military service in the Caucasus from 1903–1904 and was sent to Manchuria during the Russo-Japanese War. On his return to Moscow in 1905, Georgy Yakulov exhibited the painting “Horse racing”, drawing the attention of critics and the public. He created graphic works for the magazines “Vesy” and “Zolotoye Rouno”, and took part in exhibitions by “Mir Iskusstva”, the Vienna Secession in 1909 and the First German Autumn Salon in Berlin in 1913. In 1908 he made a journey to Italy, and from 1911 to 1912 lived in Paris. He did not join any group, relying on his own methodology in the field of easel painting, which he developed individually before the revolution. He later moved to the field of decorative painting, which Yakulov developed with a young group of decorative artists and theater figures. His creative biography, which contemporary critics did not understand, calling him “the Russian Delaunay”, is incredibly diverse: from painting to café design, from theater decorations and librettos to designing architectural monuments. An artist with a complex personality and multifaceted, original interests, he had a peculiar destiny: his fame and outstanding talents, which earned him the nickname of “Georges the Great” did not stop him from being forgotten, and his work was ignored after his death. But he played a prominent role in the history of Russian culture, not only in the field of theater design, which he began to practice in 1918, but as early as 1906, when he participated in many exhibitions. He called himself “a son of the East by temperament and origin”, which can be seen in his art on the borderline between East and West. His theory of the multicolored sun remains crucial, which addresses the differences between cultures arising from the presence or absence of light.

Date: 11.10.2022, 18:00 Duration: 60 min. Location: HayArt Cultural Center Language of presentation — English The idea of interaction between the viewer and an artwork, mediated by technologically progressive visualization methods, lies at the core of my work. In my installations I use various art forms on an equal basis: dance, music, cinema and performance. Akin to an explorer, I raise questions related to social psychology and theories of perception suggesting solutions to them by contemporary artistic means, that is by taking a subjective stance behind a camera. My installations focus on the role of the viewer and his/her interaction with an artwork, and bring forth ways of provoking the viewer’s involvement, thus allowing hidden mechanisms of human behavior to be revealed. My research process happens here and now, in the increasingly technologized present, it is deeply rooted in cultural context. Photography and other digital media always record a trace, which indicates the former presence of something. Attesting to a certain event the trace at the same time enshrines the technology in use, thus acting as a witness to contemporaneous culture. In a similar manner I tend to reflect on behavioral patterns and cultural mechanisms that are characteristic of contemporary society.

Date: 14.10.2022, 18:00 Duration: 60 min. Location: HayArt Cultural Center Language of presentation — English The creation of art has always been the result of a magical synergy of two elements: an idea and a tool for transforming this idea into a work of art. Both ideas and tools cannot be separated from the world that surrounds the artist. Ideas are a reflection of time and space, and tools are part of the technological level of a certain period and place. Since we are in the sphere of art here — or rather art which constantly takes the pulse of contemporaneity — the very concept of what may be used as a tool is an interesting question. Everyday items from shops or accidently found on the street, a body and non-material ideas — all of these things may be the material from which a work of art is made. This lecture traces the historical path of artists’ reactions to how the world evolved, and changed their approach to creating artworks over the last 100 years, using many diverse tools. It also shows how new technological possibilities influenced the production of artworks, and the main ideas that artists wanted to convey at a certain time of our history.

Date: 12.10.2022, 17:00 Duration: 60 min Location: Аrmenian Center for Contemporary Experimental Art (NPAK) Language of presentation — Russian Irina Korina is one of Russia’s most famous artists. For 20 years her objects and installations have been the main artifacts of their time, like incredible fruits that ripened just when their day arrived — and sometimes even earlier. For example, at the Venice biennale five years ago, she presented the project “Good Intentions”, consisting of many funeral wreaths. The lecture will describe Irina Korina’s main projects up to the present day, with the author’s commentary and an analysis of the context — artistic trends of contemporary Russian art, exhibitions and collective projects in which Irina Korina has participated.

Participants: Carla Gannis, Antonio Geusa, Katherine Liberovskaya, and Natalia Kolodzei

Date: 13.10.2022, 19:00 Duration: 60 min. Location: HayArt Cultural Center Language of presentation — English My rooftop garden is my laboratory. It is my training ground to develop my creativity, and it enables me to have an active dialogue with living material. It is a space where thinking and manual work go hand in hand. It connects the visible with the invisible and brings together making and performing. My art research is based on a collaboration with living organisms such as plants, insects and bacteria. I research the natural networks and dynamic ecosystems they are part of. The resulting artworks have their own behavior, metabolism and agency. The installations and sculptures grow, communicate, sense, smell and react. They are evolving performances where each installation has its own lifetime, creating a landscape on the border between natural life and science fiction. — Anne Marie Maes

Date: 17.10.2022, 19:00 Duration: 60 min. Location: HayArt Cultural Center Language of presentation — Russian At this lecture, Sergey and Ekaterina will discuss the CYLAND LASER Talks project — an ongoing series of online meetings of artists, thinkers, and cultural figures from around the world. At one of these meetings held at the Ars Electronica festival, there was a discussion of artistic practices from the perspective of moving “from the local to the global” Quoting Ezra Pound, culturologist Marshall McLuhan called artists “the antennae of the human race”. This comparison reflects the aspiration of most cultural figures to hear and to be heard – to rise above all boundaries to establish new contact outside their locality, to become “more global”. This aspiration often becomes passionary, and inspires artists “who are lost in their locality” to unite in groups, informal creative unions, artistic laboratories and associations. The idea is that by uniting in a group, artists can overcome the “burden of locality” more easily, and reach a new level of renown and recognition. Movement “from the local to the global” often involves unusual, unique, witty or even ridiculous artistic practices, which may lead to success or failure. All experiments made by figures of culture and art to overcome the limitations of locality deserve interest and respect , including innovative forms of festivals organized by artists, or the self-preserved archives of artists that set a “timebomb of interactions” for the cultural landscapes of the future.