Arseny Zhilyaev will give a Brown Bag Lunch presentation on Thursday, April 25, at 12:15 pm. His talk is entitled “The Historical Museum of Interrupted History.”

In this talk Zhilyaev will use examples of art projects with former museums of the revolution to examine interest in the study of “avant-garde museology.” This phrase is proposed by Zhilyaev as an umbrella term for complex theories and practices of exhibition activity that arose shortly before or after the proletarian revolution in Russia and which set the goal of overcoming institutional borders from inside institutions.

Arseny Zhilyaev is an artist based in Moscow and Venice. His projects examine the legacy of Soviet museology and museums in the philosophy of Russian Cosmism using the exhibition as a medium. His works have been shown at the biennales in Gwangju, Liverpool, Lyon, and the Ljubljana Triennale as well as at exhibitions at Centre Pompidou; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; de Appel, Amsterdam; HKW, Berlin; Kadist Art Foundation, Paris and San Francisco; V-a-c Foundation, Moscow and Venice; and elsewhere. Zhilyaev graduated from Voronezh State University, Philosophical Faculty (2006) and Moscow Institute of Contemporary Art (2008) and received an MA from the Valand School of Fine Arts, Goteborg, Sweden (2010). He has published articles in e-flux journal, Idea, Moscow Art Magazine, and other journals. He is an editor of the anthology Avant-Garde Museology (e-flux, University of Minnesota Press, V-a-c Press, 2015). Recent accolades include Russian awards in the sphere of contemporary art and a nomination for the Visible Award in 2013. Zhilyaev has given lectures and master classes at institutions including MoMA, Brooklyn Museum, CUNY (New York), Tate Modern, Whitechapel (London), and Princeton University (New Jersey).