The 6th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art has announced its program for 2015, with some radical alterations to its format due what organizers refer to as “challenging circumstances.”

The exhibition, co-curated by Bart De Baere, Director of MUHKA, Antwerp; Defne Ayas, Director of Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam; and Nicolaus Schafhausen, Director of Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, has been condensed into a 10-day event which will feature shows, daily talks, site specific installations, performances, and workshops.

Reacting to current affairs, the 6th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art describes itself as a Think Tank, tackling the challenges expressed in the event’s title: “How to Gather? Acting in a Center in a City in the Heart of the Island of Eurasia.”

Gabriel Lester, MurMure (2014).
Photo: Courtesy of Leo Xu Projects, Shanghai via 6th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art.

A range of participating artists and scholars including Amalia Ulman, Anton Vidokle, futurologist Maya van Leemput, sociologist Saskia Sassen, and newly-resigned former Greek finance minister Yannis Varoufakis, among others, will provide insights into challenging conversations.

In a statement, the curators addressed the complex theme, explaining “Art offers the possibility to gather, the possibility to cease being one, to become two, and perhaps more. It bears the potential to transcend the interpersonal sphere into a veritable soviet.”

Hanne Lippard, reading for fans, Performative minute (2014).
Photo: Courtesy of Joanna Szproch via 6th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art.

In addition, visitors can access the concurrent auxiliary program by a range of internationally recognized artists at venues around the city.

Louise Bourgeois will be presented for the first time with a solo exhibition in Moscow at the newly opened Garage Museum; Anish Kapoor will be showing works at the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center; and Alexander Ponomarev has a solo exhibition at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts.

The 6th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art takes place in Moscow from Sept 22 – Oct 1, 2015