About

PLAGUE is an art group and curatorial platform founded by artists Artur Golyakov, Stas Lobachevsky and Vanya Venmer in 2018 in Krasnodar. Zukhra Salakhova, an artist from Kazan, joined the collective in 2022.

In their curatorial and artistic practice, they discover such issues as post graffiti aesthetics, the occult roots of capitalism, a non-human and object-oriented agenda, and other latest artistic topics.

PLAGUE explores the boundaries and intersections of curatorial and artistic practices, working on the exhibition as a single art object that can be incorporated into a broader field for the production of meanings and statements.

In 2020, PLAGUE organized “G.O.D,” an online exhibition project that involves eight artist-run and off-site initiatives with the primary goal of establishing communication and connection between artists, curators, and other members of the art community from around the world.

G.O.D. Garden of Death in 2020 included Altan (Oslo), Catbox Contemporary (New York), K. O. T. Z (Leipzig), Hyperlink Athens (Athens), Underground Flower (Perth / Hong Kong), MRZB (Turin), 427 Gallery (Riga) and Plague (Krasnodar).

In 2021 Plague organized the second part of “G.O.D. Garden of Dreams”, which was shown on the online platform ofluxo.net. Participants in 2021 include Underground Flower (Perth / Hong Kong), Ofluxo (Online Platform), DarkZone (New Jersey) MRZB (Turin), a group of artists from Prague and Sinkhole Project (Baltimore) curated by Plague in Kazan.

In addition to their curatorial activities, PLAGUE is gradually developing in other areas, discovering new formats. At the very end of 2020, they opened Plague Space, a self-contained exhibition space. 

Plague Space aims, among other things, to show live in Krasnodar the work of international artists and curators with whom they have worked and whose artistic practices they consider important in the context of current art movements. During 2021, first of all, the founders of the space set themselves the task of introducing Krasnodar viewers to the work of contemporary foreign artists, collectives and spaces.

For three years of work, Plague Space has shown 23 projects – solo and group exhibitions of foreign and Russian artists from such cities as Oslo, New York, Baltimore, Marseille, Paris, Leipzig, Berlin, London, Hong Kong, Perth, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan and Krasnodar.

In December 2022, PLAGUE opened the Plague Office in Kazan, an experimental project space that hosts exhibitions that continue to develop the curatorial vector the Plague collective started earlier.

CV

Press/Publications:

• 2023 – Среда интеллектуального потребления искусства Коммерсантъ Стиль №22, Dmitry Ivanov (RU)
• 2023 – Для зрителя это новый опыт переживания встречи с искусством ArtTube, Interview w/ Evgenia Zubchenko (RU)
• 2022 – Что такое Plague… 0room.ru, Conversation w/ Alisa Granova (RU)
• 2022 – Имея сеть единомышленников… Syg.ma, Conversation w/ Natalya Serkova (RU)
• 2021 – Дважды рожденные Dialogue of Arts №6, Sergey Guskov (RU)
• 2021 – Выглядеть убедительно Conversation w/ Sergey Guskov (RU)
• 2021 – Gold und Liebe IV. — PLAGUE Artmagazin.hu, Conversation w/ Ráhel Anna Molnár (EN/H)
• 2020 – Q&A: PLAGUE [Krasnodar] Blokmagazine.com, Interview w/ Kathryn Zazenski (EN)
• 2020 – PLAGUE — This Shall Not Pass Newtranslation.net, Text by Alex Fisher (EN)