{"id":104817,"date":"2025-05-15T23:57:10","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T23:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/104817\/"},"modified":"2025-05-15T23:57:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T23:57:10","slug":"curator-teresa-mavica-talks-on-returning-to-art-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/104817\/","title":{"rendered":"Curator Teresa Mavica Talks On Returning to Art World"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe last three years have been a period of profound sadness for Teresa Iarocci Mavica, the former director of the Moscow<\/a>-based V-A-C Foundation, which she co-founded in 2009 with Leonid Mikhelson. He\u2019s one of Russia\u2019s richest men and a close ally of Vladimir Putin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt V-A-C, Mavica was responsible for building the GES-2 House of Culture, Russia\u2019s biggest contemporary art museum, of which she was also director. In November 2021, however, just one month before it opened, Mavica resigned, citing \u201cexhaustion.\u201d Then, three months later, just as Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Italian curator left her adopted home and returned to Italy.<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Articles<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Part<\/p>\n

\n\tFor 30 years, Mavica worked to build deep cultural ties between Russia and Europe. All that work unraveled in a heartbeat, as the world quickly distanced itself from anything Russian in the wake of the invasion. As she told ARTnews in a recent interview, her first since disappearing from the art world, she was devastated.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe divide between Russia and Europe has grown immense, and many have fallen into that chasm,\u201d Mavica said. \u201cArtists, brilliant minds, beautiful young people. It\u2019s heartbreaking.\u201d
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In March, Mavica started her comeback, curating \u201cThe Sun to Come\u201d at Made in Cloister, a private cultural foundation in Naples. Running until the end of May, the exhibition inaugurates Mavica\u2019s aptly named biennial program \u201cREBIRTH.\u201d It\u2019s part of her independent \u201cnonlineare\u201d curatorial initiative, which seeks to elevate artists above curators.<\/p>\n

\n\tNow, as the war rumbles into its fourth year, Mavica is quietly rebuilding cultural bridges: three of the ten artists who feature in \u201cThe Sun to Come\u201d are Russian. They are Alexandra Sukhareva, Anastasia Ryabova, and Olga Tsvetkova.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want it to be clear that I did not \u2018die\u2019 when I left V-A-C, I am not V-A-C,\u201d Mavica said during a recent lunch at her apartment in Naples, where she now lives. \u201cV-A-C was a program, an institution, many people. I am now the anonymous curator of \u2018The Sun to Come.\u2019 Many people have asked me why my name is not included in the show\u2019s text. I tell them that it\u2019s not about my name, it\u2019s about continuing my work and keeping the dialogue between Russia and Europe alive. We need to reflect on what has happened since February 2022, and what we\u2019ve lost.\u201d<\/p>\n

Made in Cloister occupies the stunning former 16th-century cloister of the Church of Santa Caterina a Formiello in Naples\u2019 Porta Capuana neighborhood. And Mavica\u2019s exhibition, \u201cThe Sun to Come,\u201d takes its name from an Italian partisan song. The song is both hopeful, and a warning: the sun can give life, but it is also destructive. While Mavica said she staunchly believes that art transcends politics, the scepticism rooted in the exhibition\u2019s title reflects her disappointment at a world that has turned its back on Russian culture.<\/p>\n

The works on view, including Vietnamese artist Danh Vo\u2019s untitled golden statue of Christ and French artist Cl\u00e9ment Cogitore\u2019s poignant film Les Indes Galantes, interrogate the notion of rebirth\u2014both as a tangible reality and as a hope-fueled aspiration.<\/p>\n

\n\tMavica first moved to Russia in 1989 as a student and quickly earned a reputation for developing the country\u2019s contemporary art scene, which was embryonic at the time. She met Mikhelson in 2007 while working on a project at the 52nd Venice Biennale. Soon after Mikhelson offered Mavica a job managing his private collection, but she only accepted on the condition that he support her in building a foundation to \u201cpreserve the legacy of the present by supporting contemporary artists.\u201d V-A-C Foundation was born two years later.<\/p>\n

\n\t(While Mikhelson was sanctioned by the UK government in 2022, he has not been sanctioned by the US, though several companies and ships supplying his Novatek gas company are.)<\/p>\n

In an era when the international art world continues to distance itself from Russia, Mavica remains unapologetic about her loyalties. \u201cFor a long time, I have swum against the current, and I have no intention of changing,\u201d she said. \u201cI have always believed that Russian culture is an integral part of European culture, and I will continue to do everything to promote this conviction.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen asked about Russian artists being blacklisted, Mavica questioned passionately what a Russian orchestra has to do with the war in Ukraine, as Gustav Mahler\u2019s \u201cSymphony No. 2, Resurrection, performed by Dmitry Shostakovich, crescendoed on the surround sound during our lunch. <\/p>\n

\u201cI naively expected a different reaction from the art world, a more mature reaction,\u201d she said, lamenting that neither the Venice Biennale nor the organizers of the Russian Pavilion reached out in 2022 to keep the pavilion open. \u201cThe door was closed on Russian culture, and it\u2019s tragic.<\/p>\n

\n\t(The Russian Pavilion was closed soon after the start of Russia\u2019s invasion<\/a>). <\/p>\n

Mavica added that \u201cpeople give her strange looks\u201d for her stance, but she stressed that she also worked with Ukrainian artists long before the war: \u201cI never cared for an artist\u2019s passport, only their work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mavica\u2019s sudden departure from V-A-C fueled rumors. Artforum, for example, suggested that Mikhelson pushed her out the door<\/a> because he was unhappy with the negative publicity generated by a huge Urs Fischer sculpture installed in front of GES-2.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThat\u2019s completely untrue,\u201d she said. \u201cSomeone also wrote that I left because Putin didn\u2019t like the opening exhibition at GES-2. That\u2019s false. I left before he even visited.\u201d<\/p>\n

Artforum also reported that the GES-2 curatorial team, who she described as the \u201cbest she\u2019s ever worked with,\u201d quit when she left her post. Mavica denied this too, adding that she spent months trying to convince them to stay, even after Russia invaded in 2022. <\/p>\n

\n\tMavica is not the only prominent Italian curator with links to V-A-C. Italian curator Francesco Manacorda was the director of V-A-C\u2019s outpost in Venice, though he quit in protest<\/a> of Russia\u2019s warmongering and it shut down in May 2022. He is now the director of Castello di Rivoli in Turin. The outspoken Francesco Bonami, whose impressive resume includes directing the 50th Venice Biennale and the 2010 Whitney Biennial, worked with V-A-C for the past 14 years and recently co-curated a show at GES-2<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI don\u2019t like the man,\u201d Mavica said of Bonami. \u201cI also don\u2019t like cynics and double-dealing behavior. I stopped speaking to him well before GES-2 opened. However, I profoundly respect him for continuing to work with V-A-C.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tV-A-C\u2019s Venice building is now occupied by the recently launched nonprofit arts center Scuola Piccola Zattere<\/a>, run by Mikhelson\u2019s daughter, Victoria. Several artists dropped out of its inaugural show in December after ARTnews asked them about its links to the Mikhelson family. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI don\u2019t know anything about the project, but I completely disagree with the idea of refusing to work with Russian artists. I can\u2019t relate to the idea that you can forget the past and move on,\u201d Mavica said. \u201cFrankly, it\u2019s childish that some artists dropped out of the show \u2026 This should prompt a reflection on how independent and autonomous culture truly is from politics today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite Mavica feeling burnt by the art world, \u201cThe Sun to Come\u201d is ultimately an exhibition about hope. But with the war in Ukraine showing no end in sight, Mavica is unsure how cultural relations will improve between Europe and Russia. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019d like to answer this as if I\u2019m still in Russia: Russians feels a deep sense of betrayal, not only politically but culturally,\u201d she said. \u201cFrom the Russian perspective, do you think they\u2019ll simply open their arms and say, \u2018Welcome back\u2019? It could happen, but it will take time. We need to learn from the mistakes that were made. I can imagine my former colleagues in Russia asking, \u2018Why did you slam the door shut?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The last three years have been a period of profound sadness for Teresa Iarocci Mavica, the former director…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3939],"tags":[4021,4020,4022,77,2301,16,15,333],"class_list":{"0":"post-104817","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-design","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-moscow","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-vladimir-putin"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114514561931735810","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}