ART CITIES:Moscow-Allora & Calzadilla

Allora & Calzadilla, Under Discussion (Video Still), 2005, Single-channel color video with sound, 6’ 14”, © Allora & Calzadilla, Courtesy the artists and Garage Museum of Contemporary ArtThrough a complex research-oriented practice, Allora & Calzadilla critically address the intersections and complicities between the cultural, the historical and the geopolitical. The interdisciplinary nature of their interventions is echoed by an expanded use of the artistic medium that includes performance, sculpture, sound, video and photography. Their dynamic engagement with the art historical results in an acute attention to both the conceptual and the material, the metaphoric as well as the literal.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Garage Museum Archive

Allora & Calzadilla present “Graft”, their first solo presentation in Russia. Their project is part of the series “Garage Square Commissions”. The project alludes directly to global climatic transformations. More frequent and violently destructive hurricanes in recent years have been the direct cause of millions of fallen trees in the Caribbean region. Rising global temperatures have added additional pressure to this biodiversity hotspot. The Caribbean, from the days of Christopher Columbus onward, has been systematically exploited and subsequently depleted of much of its original flora and fauna. While deforestation can certainly be said to be the primary legacy of colonialism in the Caribbean, this region, along with the 35 others worldwide named as hotspots (which amount to just 2.4% of the land surface of the earth) support nearly 60% of the world’s plant, bird, mammal, reptile, and amphibian species. By using an approach that is both poetic and scientific, Allora & Calzadilla create a boundary-transcending installation that provokes a subtle yet powerful visualization of the ecological crisis which we must all collectively confront. In Graft, tropical tree flowers, scattered under the trees on Garage square become phantoms of fallen trees from an elsewhere that haunt the place where they now are present. The uncanny way in which the blossoms appear as both plausible and out of place becomes a potent harbinger for the changing environments that we have created. At the same time the artists seem to insist, by way of this concrete example of a neo-colonial landscape, on the importance of giving visual form to the ways in which a global phenomenon such as climate change is manifest specifically in a particular place, magnifying historic inequalities and injustices. Creating an experimental body of work since 1995, Allora & Calzadilla’s practice traces the intersections of history, material culture, and politics through a wide variety of mediums, namely performance, sculpture, sound, and video. Their formally unique artistic language is deeply informed by a critical and visionary approach toward meaning-making.

Info: Curator: Snejana Krasteva, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Gorky Park, 9/32 Krymsky Val St., Moscow, Duration: 26/5-1/12/2019, Days & hours: Mon-sun 11:00-22:00, https://garagemca.org

Allora & Calzadilla, Body in Flight (Delta), 2011, Stained wood, gymnasts (Sadie Wilhelmi, USA Gymnastics, depicted), Dimensions variable, Installation view, Gloria, US Pavilion, presented by the Indianapolis Museum of Art, 54th Venice Biennale, 2011, Photo: Andrew Bordwin, © Allora & Calzadilla, Courtesy the artists and Garage Museum of Contemporary Art
Allora & Calzadilla, Body in Flight (Delta), 2011, Stained wood, gymnasts (Sadie Wilhelmi, USA Gymnastics, depicted), Dimensions variable, Installation view, Gloria, US Pavilion, presented by the Indianapolis Museum of Art, 54th Venice Biennale, 2011, Photo: Andrew Bordwin, © Allora & Calzadilla, Courtesy the artists and Garage Museum of Contemporary Art

 

 

Allora & Calzadilla, Stop, Repair, Prepare: Variations on “Ode to Joy” for a Prepared Piano, 2008, Prepared Bechstein piano, pianist (Andrea Giehl depicted in photo), piano 101.5 × 165 × 215 cm, Photo: Marino Solokov, © Allora & Calzadilla, Haus der Kunst-Munich, Courtesy the artists and Garage Museum of Contemporary Art
Allora & Calzadilla, Stop, Repair, Prepare: Variations on “Ode to Joy” for a Prepared Piano, 2008, Prepared Bechstein piano, pianist (Andrea Giehl depicted in photo), piano 101.5 × 165 × 215 cm, Photo: Marino Solokov, © Allora & Calzadilla, Haus der Kunst-Munich, Courtesy the artists and Garage Museum of Contemporary Art

 

 

Allora & Calzadilla, Hope Hippo, 2005, Mud, whistle, daily newspaper, performer, 488 × 183 × 154 cm, Installation view, Always a Little Further, 51st Venice Biennale, 2005, Photo: Giorgio Boata, © Allora & Calzadilla, Courtesy the artists and Garage Museum of Contemporary Art
Allora & Calzadilla, Hope Hippo, 2005, Mud, whistle, daily newspaper, performer, 488 × 183 × 154 cm, Installation view, Always a Little Further, 51st Venice Biennale, 2005, Photo: Giorgio Boata, © Allora & Calzadilla, Courtesy the artists and Garage Museum of Contemporary Art

 

 

Allora & Calzadilla, Track and Field, 2011, Tank and treadmill, runner (Dan O’Brien, 1996 Olympic Decathlon gold medalist, depicted), dimensions variable, Installation view, Gloria, US Pavilion, presented by the Indianapolis Museum of Art, 54th Venice Biennale, 2011, Photo: Andrew Bordwin, © Allora & Calzadilla, Courtesy the artists and Garage Museum of Contemporary Art
Allora & Calzadilla, Track and Field, 2011, Tank and treadmill, runner (Dan O’Brien, 1996 Olympic Decathlon gold medalist, depicted), dimensions variable, Installation view, Gloria, US Pavilion, presented by the Indianapolis Museum of Art, 54th Venice Biennale, 2011, Photo: Andrew Bordwin, © Allora & Calzadilla, Courtesy the artists and Garage Museum of Contemporary Art

 

 

Allora & Calzadilla, Half Mast / Full Mast (VideoStill), 2011, Dual-channel high-definition video projection, color, silent, 21’ 11”, © Allora & Calzadilla, Courtesy the artists and Garage Museum of Contemporary Art
Allora & Calzadilla, Half Mast / Full Mast (VideoStill), 2011, Dual-channel high-definition video projection, color, silent, 21’ 11”, © Allora & Calzadilla, Courtesy the artists and Garage Museum of Contemporary Art

 

 

Allora & Calzadilla, Puerto Rican Light, 2015, Site-specific commission, Dia Art Foundation, Guayanilla-Peñuelas, Puerto Rico, Photo: Myritza Castillo, © Allora & Calzadilla, Courtesy the artists and Garage Museum of Contemporary Art
Allora & Calzadilla, Puerto Rican Light, 2015, Site-specific commission, Dia Art Foundation, Guayanilla-Peñuelas, Puerto Rico, Photo: Myritza Castillo, © Allora & Calzadilla, Courtesy the artists and Garage Museum of Contemporary Art