July 19 — August 20, 12–8 p.m.
New Holland Island and Anna Nova Gallery present Fedor Hiroshige's Lecture Hall — a space for introspection, where one can find answers to deep questions and enter a dialog with one's inner self.
Fedor Hiroshige creates an original lecture hall tailored for New Holland Island and built into the Pavilion, where educational programs have run since 2016. According to the artist, the processes of learning and spiritual practice are quite similar: “In both cases, the method of repetition becomes the foundation. To train your mind you have to do different exercises, but in the case of spiritual practice, we might be training something else." In his lecture hall, Hiroshige recreates the spirit of a school classroom, where memorizing texts from anime openings, fragments of Buddhist treatises and Tibetan mantras becomes part of the curriculum.
In this sacred space you can meditate on the image of Sailor Moon, clear your mind in the salt sandbox and take notes on the silent lecture of wooden desks soaked with audio materials that the artist listened while making them — from pop music to lectures on psychoanalysis and Mozart symphonies. These exercise machines for the mind tune in and encourage concentration to inform us that the answers to all questions are already there. You just have to focus and discover them.
Fedor Hiroshige's Lecture Hall goes beyond the boundaries of the Pavilion, making an intervention into Community Center n the House 12. Through artistic intrusion into public spaces, Hiroshige explores the state of affect, shatters the routine and suggests questioning the usual understanding of reality.
Some of the works were presented at Fedor Hiroshige's Glitter in the Red Night project, shown at the Experimental Unit 13 16 45 exhibition in the Narkomfin building in Moscow this year.
Fedor Hiroshige. Mirage, 2023
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Fedor Hiroshige is a transdisciplinary artist working with various media: object, installation, video, photography, text, textiles, performance. Wood is most often used as a material. Hiroshige's practice is devoted to the study of images of mass culture and folklore through placing them in the context of Oriental (Tibetan, Chinese, Japanese) practices and symbols. The paradoxical synthesis of different cultures and times allows the author to create their own post-apocalyptic worlds, where the traditional dichotomies of nature and culture, male and female, real and fictional, material and ideal, ancient and modern lose their power, turning out to be artificial constructs.
Working with personal mythology and performative interventions in everyday life in the image of a mushroom person allow the author to explore the boundaries of human and non-human, real and surreal experience. The artist integrates elements of psychoanalytic theory, posthumanism and new ontologies into their work.
Participant of many group and a number of solo exhibitions in Russia, USA, Finland and Sweden. Nominee of the S. Kuryokhin Prize (2018, 2020), finalist of the Zverev Prize (2021). Participant of the Parallel Program of Manifesta 10 Contemporary Art Festival (2014). The works are in private and public collections: the S. Kuryokhin Central Research Institute (St. Petersburg, Russia), the Gromov Recreation Center (St. Petersburg, Russia), the Freud Dreams Museum (St. Petersburg, Russia), Saratov State Museum named after Radishchev (Saratov, Russia), Art Museum 4 (Moscow, Russia), AZ Museum (Moscow, Russia), New Museum (St. Petersburg, Russia), Main Street Art Museum (Vermont, USA), Mishkin Gallery (New York, USA), MoMA Library (New York, USA), etc.
Foto: Maria Grabareva
Anna Nova is currently one of the leading galleries in Russia. The gallery actively supports original and innovative interdisciplinary art practices, producing research-based projects and large-scale installations. In the past few years the gallery has expanded its activities and now aims to discover and promote young artists who work with urgent cultural issues and challenges that our society faces today.
