Works by John Akomfrah and Allora & Calzadilla on view at Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow
10 July 2019
Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow, Russia, has opened a major exhibition programme entitled 'The Coming World: Ecology as the New Politics 2030–2100'. The project across the entire Museum building contains works by over 50 Russian and international artists and is developed around the two main concepts of environmentalism and ecology, highlighting an urgent need for humans to rethink their relationship to nature by drawing public attention to the ecological imbalances created by human activity.John Akomfrah's six-channel film Purple (2017) opens the project, and is on view until 17 November. The second in the trilogy of projects that focus on the vitality and volatility of the natural world, Purple concentrates on the human impact on the environment and the development of the Anthropocene.
Outside the Museum's front doors, Allora & Calzadilla's installation work Graft is presented as part of the 2019 Garage Square Commission series. Recreations of the delicate yellow flowers of the Roble Amarillo tree (Tabebuia chrysantha), a species native to the Caribbean, will remain scattered under the trees across Garage Square throughout the summer and winter. The artificial blooms become phantoms of fallen trees from an elsewhere that haunt the place the now occupy, and providing a subtle yet powerful visualisation of the increasingly rapid disappearance of the planet’s biodiversity.
For more information, visit the Garage Museum's website.
Installation view of John Akomfrah's Purple at Garage Museum of Contemporary Art © Garage Museum of Contemporary Art; Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Collection. Photography Alexey Narodizkiy
Installation view of Allora & Calzadilla's Graft at Garage Museum of Contemporary Art © Garage Museum of Contemporary Art. Photography Ivan Erofeev
