1337 Views |  1

V-A-C Foundation A factory of ideas in Moscow

CARNET DE VOYAGE/by Roberta Olcese

A statue twelve metres high in silver metal is dominating Piazza della Signoria in Florence like a totem pole. This is no tribute to the past but concrete proof that the Tuscan capital still remains an international showcase for contemporary art and that sculpture has remained the most popular means the city uses in order to celebrate itself. We are not talking here of patronage but business. The work in question is entitled Big Clay#4 and has been created by Urs Fischer for the exhibition of the same name edited by Francesco Bonami which is on until January 21st 2018 just a few metres from Palazzo Vecchio. Many people might not know the artist’s name. If, on the other hand, you follow the art market you will undoubtedly know that Fischer, 44 years of age, a Swiss-German with a studio in Brooklyn who produces his works in Saint Gallen and Shanghai is one of the most highly paid and sought-after contemporary artists alive today. His works are sold through the Larry Gagosian gallery and appear in the six-zero collections of the likes of the French tycoon, Francois Pinault. Fischer has taken part in three editions of the Venice Biennale and one of his most recent exhibitions has been at the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art belonging to Dacha Zhukova in Moscow. Big Clay#4 narrates a story that crosses Switzerland, Italy, the oligarchs in Russia and even involves the Genoese architect, Renzo Piano.
Leonid Viktorovich Mikhelson, the owner of Novatek, the largest private gas producer in Russia has bought Big Clay#4 directly from Fischer himself in order to give it to the V-A-C Foundation, his art and contemporary culture foundation with a branch on the Zattere in Venice which was created and is directed by Italian-born Teresa Iarocci Mavica. At the end of the exhibition the statue will be wrapped up and sent to the Russian capital to await the end in 2019 to works on the new museum venue – the GES-2. As has already happened to the new venue for Bernard Arnaud’s Louis Vuitton Foundation in the Bois de Boulogne in Paris, GES-2 intends to revolutionise the artistic landscape of Moscow, at 150 metres from the Kremlin and the Cathedral.
“Only Renzo Piano would be able to create the new venue since we are seeking a functional architectural style much like the Centre Pompidou in Paris, a building in which and through which Italian techniques intermix with light”, Mrs Mavica has promptly stated. She has also added that Renzo Piano: “understands the relationship between space and art and works in urban architecture and public spaces. The only possible solution for us was to choose Renzo Piano”. Mrs Mavica has also claimed that: “The GES-2 will not just be another contemporary art museum but it will also be a factory of ideas which is a very strong concept for us. It will have a soul, and naturally, a considerable budget”. Teresa Mavica is a quick mover. She first arrived in Russia in 1989 and is aware that people expect the wallet of a magnate such as Mikhelson – a man who, according to Forbes, weighs 14.4 billion dollars – to be boundless. “Leonid is a businessman that I need to have and I have had to come up with a strategy that would guarantee constant development and in which I will be able to apply the criteria of his business to the V-A-C. The design project is in my mind”. Renzo Piano will redesign two whole hectares in the centre of Moscow, just a stone’s throw from the Red Square and the Kremlin and he will reconvert the GES-2, the historic headquarters of an electric power station into an engine of contemporary culture. The new building will be an imposing cube with 150-metre high sides that will be looking onto a garden and a square where Big Clay#4 will have pride of position and will enjoy the privilege of being the first contemporary sculpture in Moscow. “The development of sculpture has suffered more than other arts. It’s got stuck”, Mrs Mavica has observed. She feels the need to separate the concept of sculpture from the idea of self-celebration which is so dear to dictatorships. “We would like to revolutionise the idea of public art, we think the road passes by Fischer and artists like the Briton, Mike Nelson who, two years ago, created an installation at the Whitechapel Gallery in London. He used some pieces from our collection and he put pieces by Brancusi and Giacometti next to African masks. The collection represents the journey Leonid has made to discover the history of art”. As a matter of fact, this collection that has been put together over the last few years will be an introduction to contemporary art in Russia. Mavica knows she cannot rebuild the history of art. Her objective is to “have a work that represents the work of the artist and young people will be able to go into the GES-2 warehouse and reconstruct the history of sculpture”. The Viktoria Foundation aims to become the gathering point for information for Eastern Europe and Mavica continues to be direct when talking about these very goals: “It is pointless to try to recreate a copy of Tate in Moscow. We need a structure like ours to polarize the surrounding realities, all those countries that end up in “more” Hungary and Romania”.
Take a look at these two: Mikhelson and Mavica are not going to be taken.