Open Circle: Small World
September 15–October 9, 2021
Fragment Gallery
Potapovsky Lane, 12
Moscow, Russia
Fragment presents the second exhibition of the international gallery-sharing initiative called Open Circle. Each year a new theme is proposed for participating galleries. This time concept of the «Small world» exhibition reflects the modern processes of globalization. Despite those who oppose this phenomenon, the project organizers suggest perceiving the «Small world» tendency in a positive way, where art is becoming more accessible. We often notice common themes among artists living and working in different parts of the world, and this is just one of the inevitable manifestations of contemporary art. But the world is not becoming homogenized, instead, we witness the birth of a new community where everyone is somehow connected by five handshakes.
The gallery-sharing initiative features Misako & Rosen (Tokyo) with ironic and provocative videos and prints by the artist duo COBRA and Ken Kagami and Peres Projects (Berlin) with Rebecca Ackroyd’s graphics. Lubov (New York) will show a figurative triptych by Kevin Tobin; Raster (Warsaw) — Przemek Matecki’s series on Art History (previously shown at NADA Miami 2019), Temnikova & Kasela (Tallinn) — Sigrid Viir’s works earlier featured at OVR Art Basel last year; Capsule (Shanghai) — a video by Wang Haiyang (some of his other works will be available at Liste 2021). Fragment will show Kian McKeown’s melancholic, subtle and surreal works.
About galleries and artists:
Peres Projects (Berlin, Germany)
Founded by Javier Peres in 2002, Peres Projects is an art gallery focused on promoting contemporary artists to an international audience. Gallery artists have been included in a wide array of internationally renowned exhibitions and their works are regularly exhibited by leading museums. Working closely with collectors, art advisors, and institutions, the gallery assists in building important collections of contemporary art. Since the gallery’s inception, it has operated project spaces and presented important exhibitions of contemporary art in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Athens, Stockholm, and Berlin
Rebecca Ackroyd
Rebecca Ackroyd (b. 1987 in Cheltenham, UK) lives and works between London and Berlin. Rebecca Ackroyd’s practice assembles painting and sculptural works into dream-like landscapes, often populated by ambiguously gendered figures in varying states of repose. Ackroyd’s work builds on a practice of constructing and examining space encountering with ubiquitous, innocuous objects that are steeped with a sense of the uncanny, in order to excavate our cultural memory and explore how meaning is made.
Misako & Rosen (Tokyo, Japan)
Founded by power couple Misako and Jeffrey Rosen in 2006. The gallery represents artists from Japan and abroad, focusing on artwork that is literal-minded, rooted in the everyday and, hopefully, imbued with some semblance of a sense of humor. The gallery functions both as an exhibition space and (modest) reading room and is meant to exist as an open, casual space in which to experience the various aspects of contemporary culture.
COBRA
COBRA is a Japanese artist and the founder of XYZ Collective, an artist-run gallery based in Tokyo, Japan. Using various disciplines such as video, performance, sculpture, and painting COBRA intends to present trifling contradictions hidden within both art history and our daily lives, with a dose of humour. Bold impact and a sense of undeniable discomfort are the first impressions when encountering his works.
Ken Kagami
Japanese artist Ken Kagami is known for his brashly humorous and playfully erotic works that involve stuffed toys, exposed genitals and bodily functions. Ken Kagami’s work humorously confronts social taboos and has received glowing reviews not only in Japan, but also overseas. The crude simplicity of his work adds to the humor—Kagami says he prefers a strong concept to expert marksmanship.
Raster (Warsaw, Poland)
The Raster Gallery is among the pioneers and leaders of the Central European contemporary art market and one of the most recognisable Polish galleries. The gallery cooperates with the most significant institutions and collections, taking part in major art fairs while striving to support and develop Warsaw’s local art scene. The Raster also publishes books, art editions and other publications along with contributing to local and international cooperation platforms between galleries. For 20 years we have consistently been presenting the most original artists from Poland and the world.
Przemek Matecki
Taking as his point of departure the excrements and garbage (also literally) of contemporary visual and material culture, Przemysław Matecki (born 1976) produces painterly beings-paintings, objects and installations – representing the highest degree of sophistication. In his works, he combines press photographs and reproductions with a noble painterly camouflage. Matecki’s art has a radical and experimental nature. His works have been shown, among others, in Frankfurt, Paris, Vienna, London and New York.
Lubov (New York, USA)
Lubov is a contemporary art gallery located in New York City showing new work and site-specific commissions by emerging artists since 2016. The reviews on gallery exhibitions have been published in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Artforum, V Magazine, Office Magazine, The Village Voice, Art in America, Bedford & Bowery, Art F City and many others.
Kevin Tobin
Kevin Tobin (b. 1989, Canada) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. He received a BFA from the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, MI in 2011. His work has evolved from very large abstract-figurative to smaller, purely abstract pieces. He is a symbolist artist who paints things when becoming obsessed with them and believing the form and subject matter will allow him to create a great painting. For example, an X-ray of a bat that looks startlingly human, for example, is symbolic for the beginning of modern medicine and the end of pandemics.
Temnikova & Kasela (Tallinn, Estonia)
Temnikova & Kasela gallery was established in 2010 by Olga Temnikova and Indrek Kasela. The gallery provides local and international professional representation for established and emerging artists from the region including Estonia, Latvia, Finland and Russia. Temnikova & Kasela has been presenting a regular exhibition program in its Tallinn space, working closely with artists and collectors, and playing an active role in regional and international art scenes. The gallery has previously participated at Basel Art Fair, Frieze, The Armory Show, Cosmoscow, LISTE Art Fair, Paris Internationale and NADA Miami Beach, among others.
Sigrid Viir
Sigrid Viir (b. 1979) is a photo and installation artist who lives and works in Tallinn. She has studied cultural theory in the Estonian Institute of Humanities and graduated the department of photography at the Estonian Academy of Arts. As an artist, Viir is interested in the daily aspects of human existence and the related tangle of social agreements, the borderline between the totality of work and personal time of rest as well as the themes of visual language. Sigrid is one of the three members of art collective Visible Solutions LLC. She has actively taken part in exhibitions both in Estonia and abroad.
Capsule (Shanghai, China)
Capsule Shanghai sought to work with artists from China or artists who have established a professional foothold in the country. The gallery continues to work with emerging contemporary artists destined for the international scene, often presenting their work for the first time in China and abroad. The gallery participates in major international fairs such as Artissima, Liste Basel; Paris Internationale, Frieze New York, Art Basel Hong Kong and West Bund Art & Design.
Wang Haiyang
Wang Haiyang employs a multimedia approach to expand the rhetorical scope of art. His work reflects on contemporary existential topics while investigating, through the medium of the body, themes such as identity, language and lust. Wang’s works have been selected and received critical acclaim by more than 50 International festivals.His work has been covered by Mousse Magazine, ArtReview Asia, Leap, Art Asia Pacific and others.
Fragment (Moscow, Russia; New York, USA)
Fragment is a contemporary art gallery based in Moscow (Russia) and New York (USA). The gallery focuses on promoting artists regardless of their age, gender, nationality, or race. The artistic practice of most of them is focused on global issues, from social and economic to political. The gallery was founded in December 2016.
The gallery actively works to develop international cooperation. In 2020, the Fragment pioneered the first gallery-sharing initiative in Russia called Open Circle. Exhibitions and fair participation of the gallery are regularly featured in the international press, such as The Art Newspaper, Artforum, ARTNews, Financial Times, Forbes, etc. The gallery regularly participates in major international art fairs such as Liste (Basel), NADA Miami (Miami), Sunday (London), SP-Arte (Sao Paulo), and Cosmoscow (Moscow). Fragment is a member of the New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA).
Kian McKeown
Kian McKeown graduated from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (New York) in 2021. His work has changed substantially over his four years at Cooper, most notably in the materials he’s come to work with in large part due to a 3DD class. While initially he primarily used wax, silicone, and hair, he now tends to use plaster, paper mâché, wood, and paint. During the summer of 2020, he organized a group show for friends from Cooper called “Tree Show.” The idea was simple—a picnic in Central Park with the goal of showing art at a time when exhibition opportunities were rare.