www.newmuseum.org

New York, NY…The New Museum is pleased to collaborate with Governors Island on the first U.S. presentation of Russian artist Andrei Monastyrski‘s Slogan (1977), on the occasion of the exhibition “Ostalgia” a survey devoted to Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Republics, on view at the New Museum from July 14- September 25, 2011. The work consists of a red and white banner which carries the message in Russian: “I DO NOT COMPLAIN ABOUT ANYTHING AND I ALMOST LIKE IT HERE, ALTHOUGH I HAVE NEVER BEEN HERE BEFORE AND KNOW NOTHING ABOUT THIS PLACE.”

Virtually unknown in the United States, Andrei Monastyrski (b. 1949, Petsamo, Russia; lives in Moscow) is one of the most respected and internationally acclaimed figures in Russian contemporary art.    He recently represented his country at the 2011 Venice Biennale, and has influenced generations of artists. Monastyrski is the founder of the Moscow-based artist group Collective Actions. This loose association of artists was founded in 1976 and practiced a brand of conceptualism which made use of poetic language and simple performative gestures. Monastyrski and his collaborators (Nikolai Panitkov, Igor Makarevich, Elena Elagina, Sabine Hänsgen, and Sergei Romashko) organized their works clandestinely with a limited audience that was actively involved in the creation of the work. In a typical Collective Actions event, a small group of viewers would be invited to travel to an isolated location on the outskirts of Moscow. There they would encounter a variety of mysterious actions and objects which made use of the surrounding landscape to activate the viewer’s experience of the site. Possible events could include a man walking through an empty field and falling into a pit, the sound of single ringing bell, or the presentation of enigmatic messages on banners hung from trees. For Monastyrski and his collaborators, the work extended beyond the event itself to include the duration of the viewer’s journey and the persistence of the event in memory and written descriptions.

As with all of Monastyrski’s projects, the public is expected to stumble upon the piece almost accidentally. The presence of a Russian sign on Governors Island acts as a kind of urban mytha small, discrete intervention in the New York landscape that gently plays with our expectations. Located on Governors Island’s harbor side road facing Manhattan’s tip and the Statue of Liberty, the banner turns into a commentary on American democracy and the history of displacement and relocation that characterizes New York’s harbor. The installation also connects to the history of the Island when, on December 8, 1988, President Ronald Reagan, President-elect George H.W Bush, and General Secretary of the Communist Party of Soviet Russia Mikhail Gorbachev held a private meeting there after Gorbachev’s historic speech signifying the end to the Cold War.

This installation of Slogan (1977) maintains the sense of hermetic discovery inherent in Monastyrski’s original actions while allowing the message to reverberate to an entirely new audience, space, and time.

About “Ostalgia”
“Ostalgia” is an exhibition that brings together the work of more than fifty artists from twenty countries across Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Republics. The exhibition takes its title from the German word ostalgie, a term that emerged in the 1990s to describe a sense of longing and nostalgia for the era before the collapse of the Communist Bloc. Contesting the format of a conventional geographical survey, the exhibition will include works produced by Western European artists who have depicted the reality and the myth of the East. “Ostalgia” is curated by Massimiliano Gioni, Associate Director and Director of Exhibitions with Jarrett Gregory, Assistant Curator, and will be on view at the New Museum from July 14 through September 25, 2011, occupying all four gallery floors and the lobby.

Exhibition Support
Lead Producer: V-A-C VICTORIA — the Art of Being Contemporary Foundation.

Additional support provided by Lietta and Dakis Joannou, and the Toby Devan Lewis Emerging Artists Exhibitions Fund. Artist travel is made possible, in part, by the Trust for Mutual Understanding. Support for Paulina Ołowska’s work is made possible by the Polish Cultural Institute in New York.

Special thanks to The Trust for Governors Island.

About the New Museum
The New Museum is the only museum in New York City exclusively devoted to contemporary art. Founded in 1977, the New Museum was conceived as a center for exhibitions, information, and documentation about living artists from around the world. From its beginnings as a one-room office on Hudson Street to the inauguration of its first freestanding, dedicated building on the Bowery designed by SANAA in 2007, the New Museum continues to be a place of ongoing experimentation and a hub of new art and new ideas.

Please contact press@newmuseum.org to request images or more information.

Exhibition Support
Lead Producer: V-A-C, VICTORIA—the Art of Being Contemporary Foundation.

Additional support provided by Lietta and Dakis Joannou, and the Toby Devan Lewis Emerging Artists Exhibitions Fund. Artist travel is made possible, in part, by the Trust for Mutual Understanding. Support for Paulina Ołowska’s work is made possible by the Polish Cultural Institute  in New York.

About the New Museum
The New Museum is the only museum in New York City exclusively devoted to contemporary art. Founded in 1977, the New Museum was conceived as a center for exhibitions, information, and documentation about living artists from around the world. From its beginnings as a one-room office on Hudson Street to the inauguration of its first freestanding, dedicated building on the Bowery designed by SANAA in 2007, the New Museum continues to be a place of ongoing experimentation and a hub of new art and new ideas.

Artists

Vyacheslav Akhunov
Born in 1948 in Och, Kyrgyzstan
Lives in Tashkent, Uzbekistan

Victor Alimpiev
Born in 1973 in Moscow, Russia
Lives in Moscow, Russia

Evgeny Antufiev
Born in 1986 in Kyzyl, Russia
Lives and works in Tuva, Russia, and Moscow, Russia

Vladimir Arkhipov
Born in 1961 in Ryazan, Russia
Lives in Moscow, Russia

Said Atabekov
Born in 1965 in Bes-Terek, Kazakhstan
Lives in Shymkent, Kazakhstan

Nikolay Bakharev
Born in 1946 in Mikhailovka, Russia
Lives in Novokuznetsk, Russia

Mirosław Bałka
Born in 1958 in Otwock, Poland
Lives in Otwock, Poland

Irina Botea
Born in 1970 in Ploieşti, Romania
Lives in Chicago, Illinois, USA

Geta Brătescu
Born in 1926 in Ploieşti, Romania
Lives in Bucharest, Romania

Anatoly Brusilovsky
Born in 1932 in Odessa, Ukraine
Lives in Cologne, Germany, and Moscow, Russia

Erik Bulatov
Born in 1933 in Sverdlovsk, Russia
Lives in Paris, France

Olga Chernysheva
Born in 1962 in Moscow, Russia
Lives in Moscow, Russia

Chto Delat?
Founded in 2003 in St. Petersburg, Russia
Based in St. Petersburg and Moscow, Russia

Phil Collins
Born in 1970 in Runcorn, UK
Lives in London, UK

Neil Cummings and Marysia Lewandowska
Born in 1947 in Aberdare, UK; Born in 1955 in Szczecin, Poland
Live in London, UK

Tacita Dean
Born in 1965 in Canterbury, UK
Lives in Berlin, Germany

Stanislav Filko
Born in 1937 in Velká Hradná, Slovakia
Lives in Bratislava, Slovakia

Hermann Glöckner
Born in 1889 in Dresden, Germany
Died in 1987 in Berlin, Germany

Ion Grigorescu
Born in 1945 in Bucharest, Romania
Lives in Bucharest, Romania

Andris Grīnbergs
Born in 1946 in Riga, Latvia
Lives in Riga, Latvia

Aneta Grzeszykowska
Born in 1974 in Warsaw, Poland
Lives in Warsaw, Poland

Tibor Hajas
Born in 1946 in Budapest, Hungary
Died in 1980 in Szeged, Hungary

Petrit Halilaj
Born in 1986 in Skënderaj, Kosovo
Lives in Berlin, Germany

Hamlet Hovsepian
Born in 1950 in Ashnak, Armenia
Lives in Ashnak, Armenia

Sanja Iveković
Born in 1949 in Zagreb, Croatia
Lives in Zagreb, Croatia

Július Koller
Born in 1939 in Piestany, Slovakia
Died in 2007 in Bratislava, Slovakia

Jiří Kovanda
Born in 1953 in Prague, Czech Republic
Lives in Prague, Czech Republic

Evgenij Kozlov (E-E)
Born in 1955 in St. Petersburg, Russia
Lives in Berlin, Germany

Edward Krasiński
Born in 1925 in Łucka, Poland
Died in 2004 in Warsaw, Poland

Alexander Lobanov
Born in 1924 in Mologa, Russia
Died in 2003 in Yaroslavl, Russia

Jonas Mekas
Born in 1922 in Semeniškiai, Lithuania
Lives in Brooklyn, New York, USA

Boris Mikhailov
Born in 1938 in Karkov, Ukraine
Lives in Kharkov, Ukraine, and Berlin, Germany

Andrei Monastyrski
Born in 1949 in Petsamo, Russia
Lives in Moscow, Russia

Deimantas Narkevičius
Born in 1964 in Utena, Lithuania
Lives in Vilnius, Lithuania

Paulina Otowska
Born in 1976 in Gdańsk, Poland
Lives in Raba Niżna, Poland

Roman Ondák
Born in 1966 in Žilina, Slovakia
Lives in Bratislava, Slovakia

Anatoly Osmolovsky
Born in 1969 in Moscow, Russia
Lives in Moscow, Russia

Helga Paris
Born in 1938 in Goleniów, Poland
Lives in Berlin, Germany

Pavel Pepperstein
Born in 1966 in Moscow, Russia
Lives in Moscow, Russia

Susan Philipsz
Born in 1965 in Glasgow, UK
Lives in Berlin, Germany

Viktor Pivovarov
Born in 1937 in Moscow, Russia
Lives in Prague, Czech Republic

Dmitri Prigov
Born in 1940 in Moscow, Russia
Died in 2007 in Moscow, Russia

Anri Sala
Born in 1974 in Tirana, Albania
Lives in Berlin, Germany

Michael Schmidt
Born in 1945 in Berlin, Germany
Lives in Berlin, Germany

Thomas Schütte
Born in 1954 in Oldenburg, Germany
Lives in Düsseldorf, Germany

Simon Starling
Born in 1967 in Epsom, UK
Lives in Copenhagen, Denmark

Mladen Stilinović
Born in 1947 in Belgrade, Serbia
Lives in Zagreb, Croatia

David Ter-Oganyan
Born in 1982 in Rostov-on-Don, Russia
Lives in Moscow, Russia

Jaan Toomik
Born in 1961 in Tartu, Estonia
Lives in Tallinn, Estonia

Andra Ursuta
Born in 1979 in Salonta, Romania
Lives in New York, USA

Andro Wekua
Born in 1977 in Sukhumi, Georgia
Lives in Zürich, Switzerland, and Berlin, Germany

The Workshop of the Film Form (Wojciech Bruszewski,
Józef Robakowski, Ryszard Waśko)
Founded 1970 in Łódź, Poland

Sergey Zarva
Born in 1973 in Krivoy Rog, Ukraine
Lives in Odessa, Ukraine

Jasmila Žbanić
Born in 1974 in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina
Lives in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina

Anna Zemánková
Born in 1908 in Olomouc, Czech Republic
Died in 1986 in Prague, Czech Republic

Gabriel Einsohn, Communications Director
press@newmuseum.org
Andrea Schwan, Andrea Schwan Inc.
info@andreaschwan.com