Application deadline: December 8, 2017
The Gogova Foundation is proud to announce an open call for participation in its third artists residency. The applications received will be reviewed by an Expert Committee, who will announce the recipient in January 2018. The selected artist will spend from one to two months in the residency and will present a solo project in Karachaevo-Cherkessia in March 2018.
In 2017, the Gogova Foundation launched a residency for emerging artists. For its first year, the program was based in an exhibition space in the center of the historic Old City of Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. The residents for this year included Ulyana Podkorytova and Vladimir Abikh, both Russian artists, selected by the international Expert Committee. In 2018, the residency will relocate to the village of Bukovo in Nizhny Arkhyz, a region of the Republic of Karachaevo-Cherkessia.
Karachaevo-Cherkessia was not chosen by chance. It was here that the founder of the Gogova Foundation, Mariana Guber-Gogova, was born, and one of the Foundation’s most important tasks is the support and development of contemporary art, not only in the capital or abroad, but also across different regions of Russia.
The Republic of Karachaevo-Cherkessia, its natural landscapes and cultural heritage, the ecological attributes of the region, the Republic’s various religious monuments and ethnic diversity—all of these features combine to offer artists a unique opportunity for the research and creation of new works. The territory is home to the Special Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences, one of the buildings of the dedicated research town that will serves as the exhibition space for the artists residency. Having celebrated its 50th anniversary last year, the Special Astrophysical Observatory in Nizhny Arkhyz remains the largest such facility in the country, and host to the largest optical telescope in Eurasia. Its research town boasts a population of around one thousand inhabitants, who regularly hold scientific conferences, in addition to developing and implementing new technologies for studying Space.
In 2016, the Gogova Foundation selected this site in Nizhny Arkhyz for its large-scale international exhibition, Observatory, which was produced in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture of Karachaevo-Cherkessia and the Austrian Cultural Forum. Participants include artists like RADYA, Irina Korina, Alexandra Paperno, Anna Titova and Svetlana Shuvaeva.
As part of this relocation, the Expert Committee has gained two new members: Simon Mraz, a curator and collector, as well as the Director of the Austrian Cultural Forum in Moscow, and Olga Nefedova, an independent consultant and curator.
The Gogova Foundation for the Support of Contemporary Art and Culture is a nonprofit initiative founded by Mariana Guber-Gogova in 2016, and dedicated to the promotion of emerging artists from Russia and its neighbors near and far, through the organization of non-commercial exhibitions, including collaborations with state institutions, the establishment of an artists residency for artists from several targeted regions, and educational programs that bring together artists, critics and curators. Among Gogova Foundation’s past projects are a solo exhibition of Olya Kroytor at the Kasteyev Museum in Almaty (Kazakhstan) and a large-scale exhibition of both Russian and Austrian artists at the Special Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Nizhny Arkhyz (Republic of Karachaevo-Cherkessia, Russia.)
The Gogova Foundation Artists Residency launched in Baku in 2017 as a residency for emerging artists, selected by an Expert Committee comprised of leading specialists in the field of contemporary art, including:
Suad Garayeva, Curator of Exhibition Programs and the Permanent Collection at YARAT Contemporary Art Space; Jarrett Gregory, Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, DC; Mariana Guber-Gogova, President of the Gogova Foundation and co-founder of Artwin Gallery; Ekaterina Inozemtseva, Curator at the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art; Simon Mraz, Director of the Austrian Cultural Forum in Moscow; Olga Nefedova, an independent consultant; Alexey Novoselov, Director of the Exhibition Department of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA).
The first participant was Ulyana Podkorytova, who was selected for May 2017 and present her final project on July 18, 2017. The second participant, Vladimir Abikh, presented his own project, developed while in residency, in October 2017.
The Gogova Foundation Artists Residency is open to artists 35 years old and under, who are living in the countries of the CIS, Central Asia and the Middle East. The length of the residency can vary from 1–2 months, depending on the project proposal (applicants are kindly requested to indicate their desired period on their application.) Participants in the artists residency will receive a honorarium/stipend of 1000 EUR. Each participant will be provided with accommodation for the length of the preparation of the project, though not exceeding 2 months. The artist is responsible for travel to and from the residency. Participants are not provided a per diem. Artists are allowed to bring assistants, who can share their accommodation, but the program will not cover additional expenses or honorariums for the assistant. Each project is allotted a production budget of 1000 EUR, which is intended to cover the costs of materials and the installation. For more detailed information and applications, please refer to the website.
