Work Together Stay Alive at EXILE

Artists: Caro Eibl, Genevieve Goffman, Guillermo Ros, Julius Pristauz, Philipp Simon, Sarah Księska, Vitaly Bezpalov, Vladimir Kolesnikov, Yein Lee

Exhibition title: Work Together Stay Alive

Curated by: TZVETNIK (Vitaly Bezpalov and Natalya Serkova)

Venue: EXILE, Vienna, Austria

Date: October 30 – December 7, 2019

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and EXILE, Berlin

EXILE is happy to invite you to an exhibition curated by Moscow-based curator and writer Natalya Serkova and artist Vitaly Bezpalov entitled Work Together Stay Alive.

Is it a mistake to say that a lemon slice in your teacup always tends to float towards your lips as if to deliberately ruin your tea drinking experience? Sometimes we may even rapidly rotate the cup 180 degrees assuming the slice’s gonna stay where it was. However, no matter how fast we are, the lemon is always faster to turn up on that exact side of the cup we take a sip from. What is it? Is it some kind of lemon conspiracy? For this to pass as a conspiracy, there’s going to be a global communications network binding a swarm of lemons. I guess they all work together with an element of surprise on their side. Each as yellow as a minion, a team worker. A dog pack is working together in order to…

What are we talking about when we talk about group show? Is it a work done together? Bananas are as yellow as lemons, but do they also communicate? Even if they do, it sure doesn’t look like it. And there is no way for us to know. For the most part a banana split is made by a human, not a banana. A banana split is definitely not the same thing as a lemon slice position in your tea cup, these things can not be compared. Are lemons alive? Alive because of yellowness or because of their ability to act correspondingly? A communications network and being alive – these two things are interlinked.

Things that work together qualify as living things. What about the non-living? Can non-living things work together? I don’t know. Can something work together just because it’s yellow? To be yellow—is it a reason enough to be alive? Wait. It is us who see the color yellow. A lemon will give it to you straight: it is you who sees things living. So who’s right? Work together? Stay alive?

Participating Artists: Caro Eibl, Genevieve Goffman, Guillermo Ros, Julius Pristauz, Philipp Simon, Sarah Księska, Vitaly Bezpalov, Vladimir Kolesnikov, Yein Lee

Natalya Serkova (b. 1988) is a philosopher and art theorist, currently based in Moscow, Russia. She has received a B.A. in Philosophy in RSUH, Moscow. Her book ‘That What Might Be Given’ («То, что может быть дано»), written in a genre of theory fiction, was published in 2017 in Russian. She is a contributor to Moscow Art Magazine, e-flux journal, RevistaArta, isthisit?, OFluxo and others.

Vitaly Bezpalov (b. 1985). Lives and works in Moscow. Artist, co-founder of Tzvetnik. Selected exhibitions include Sans (t)rêve et sans merci, Cube, 2019; Hands of Doom VI, Storage Capacite, Berlin, 2019; Tilt, In.Plano, Paris, 2018; Obvious-incredible, 427 Gallery, Riga, 2018; No Where/Now here @Jim Morrison Room/Ultrastudio, Los Angeles, 2018; Ruminations of the Midnight Stroll, Harlesden High Street, London; The Rhythm of the Night, Center RED, Moscow, 2017; Paradise on Mars, OJ, Istanbul, 2017

TZVETNIK is an independent online curatorial platform founded in 2016. TZVETNIK is aimed at documenting and archiving the international contemporary art process. It facilitates curated aggregation of the cultural output coming from various creative communities, individual artists and visual art specialists. TZVETNIK was founded and is currently run by Vitaly Bezpalov and Natalya Serkova.