Spotlight with Denis Maksimov
Denis Maksimov, Curator of Art and Programmes, Pushkin House / Founder, Lecture Performance Archive and Avenir Institute. Photo: Jacek Sosnowski.
Could you tell us a little more about your background and how you got into curating?
I come from a working-class family in a small town on the border of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine, called Bryansk. There were no museums or galleries of visual art in the area. My first proper encounter with “art” happened in Moscow, where I moved for studies in politics after winning the all-Russian intellectual contest in history. Initially, it was the national museums of cultural heritage, and with the expansion of my travels to Europe, I began engaging with contemporary art.
A more proper introduction to the art world ecosystem did not occur until I moved to Brussels for work. I had been consulting various think tanks, producing expertise about the geopolitics in Eurasia and EU-Russian relations. In 2013, I participated in Professor Pamela Lee's workshop in preparation for her book, Think Tank Aesthetics, where she explored the aesthetic dimension of knowledge legitimation by the institutions. At the time, I had been working with think tanks as well as artistic strategies for strengthening the grip of neoliberalism on objective reality and intersections of art and politics in making meaning. Through Lee’s workshop, I had an epiphany and realised that what I did in my political consulting work is not much different from making meaning in the field of art and aesthetics. That made me excited about the critical potential of art to address the institutions of truth and sense-making in a unique way, which is not accessible to academia, politics or other familiar terrains for me. In addition to my research work for a PhD in Politics, I enrolled in the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp and later attended Karl the Great University, earning degrees in Fine Art and Research in Art and Design.
Who/what has influenced your curatorial practice?
Since the beginning of my professional journey in the art world, I have been fascinated by figures who challenge the conventions of media by focusing on ideas, concepts, and contexts that shape our perception of art. In parallel with my career in politics, I began working with Harlan Levey as an assistant curator at his gallery in Brussels. Harlan’s unconventional vision and daring attitude to programming, as well as his openness to experimentation, charted the path for my first curatorial projects. At the same time, my tutors in Antwerp, such as Hilde van Pelt, encouraged me to experiment with the aesthetics of rhetoric and producing meaning through the medium of lecture performance that I had just discovered. Upon flattering invitation of the founders of Antwerp’s artist-run space Stadslimiet, Vaast Colson and Dennis Tyfus, I presented my first lecture performance, "The Anatomy of Modern Leviathan," in 2015, marking the intersection of my curatorial and artistic inquiries into the fundamental questions of socio-political and cultural epistemology. Since those times up until now, I have viewed the research process in curatorial practice as a form of creative collaboration between the artist, curator, and institution or space.
The role of the curator is continuously changing. Could you describe what it means to be a curator today?
Whenever one talks about ‘curating’, they inevitably get to the etymology of the word or the history of museology stemming from ‘curare’ and ‘caring for’. However, for me, there is a difference between the notion of ‘curator’ – applied to anything now from sandwiches, playlists and social care institutions to political advisors and museum directors – and essential ‘curatorial’ work. In the ancient Greek world, there was a specific role of the master of public ritual of meaning making, religious festivals or playwright competitions, called epimelitís (επιμελητής), which can be translated as ‘overseer’, ‘editor’ and ‘caretaker’. I have come to believe the role of the curator, especially when viewed from the perspective of transcending disciplinary boundaries, is precisely the act of making meaning relevant to understanding the present, reassessing the past, and thinking about possible futures. In this sense, a curator of a political party or a curator of a museum is engaged in the same activity of ritual affirmation, just manifesting the production of sense in their subsequent areas of work. Of course, curators deal with objects, but I have learned that there is so much more to it.
Tell us about the latest exhibition / project that you curated.
Most recently, I have co-curated the exhibition of Arsen Zhilayev, from my perspective one of the foremost Russian conceptual artists of his generation, at Pushkin House, which is on view in London until June 26. Provocatively titled, “_____n Haus,” the project can be described as a philosophical experiment of cancel culture on the grounds of institutional critique. The exhibition, or rather an intervention into the institution and its archives, addresses the questions of resistance to the political authorities’ grip on official truth and the agency of imagining a speculative future from the foundations of anti-war aesthetics of alternative world-making. The installation consists of a commissioned 40-minute-long silent 16 mm film accompanied by the soundtrack of the same length, both produced using the archival materials and AI (or LLM), vinyl and collage works, altogether working as a fertile ground of references to avant-garde anti-war movements of the 1920s, speculative dreams of political alternatives and often futile search for rationalisation of political violence and conflict.
Currently, I am working on several projects addressing the anatomy of the lecture performance medium, informality in the arts, the ontology of luck and chance and the overwhelming misuse of the notion of ‘care’ in the art world, leading to turning it into what linguists call ‘an empty signifier’.
What are you reading, watching, or listening to now, that is helping you to stay relaxed and positive?
I am reading “Sweet Violence: The Idea of the Tragic” by Terry Eagleton, a thorough and thoughtful analysis of tragedy as a medium for describing the human condition across time and space. I love to relax by watching films and series that make my brain wander in new directions, such as Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale or Disney’s excellent take on making an art house analysis of the micro and macro political power operation in Andor. For better or worse, my husband makes me watch less demanding TV, such as And Just Like That, or feel-good movies like A Nice Indian Boy, to give my grey matter a rest.
How long have you been part of IKT and how do you feel that it has benefited your curatorial practice?
I have been a member of IKT since the Wales summit in the autumn of 2023. It was wonderful to meet many amazing colleagues from around the world in Llandudno, Switzerland, Qatar, and the UAE this year. I believe that for our profession, it is crucial to maintain a healthy polylogue – and highlight through our everyday work the imaginary nature of the socio-political and cultural temporary institutions that we create, recreate or reform. I believe it is relevant to both exhibition makers and institutional leaders. Through building and maintaining a global community that transcends common denominators and stereotypical labels, we work toward possibilities to rethink what sometimes appears as the natural order of things. This critical capacity of curatorial work in the arts is what keeps me excited and motivated to continue.
Thank you Denis!
Spotlight
Spotlight is a new series of short interviews, aiming to showcase the diverse expertise and innovative approaches of our IKT members. Whether you're seeking inspiration or searching for potential partners, join us on this captivating journey as we uncover the stories, ideas, and creative visions of our members.
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