Art without death: explore Russian Cosmism in Berlin

Art Without Death: Russian Cosmism opens on Friday 1 September at Berlin’s Haus der Kulturen der Welt. The exhibition and two-day conference will bring Russian avant-garde works together with contemporary film and installation art to allow reflection on the philosophical, scientific and artistic concepts of Russian Cosmism and its enduring relevance to art today.

Centring around the imperative of achieving immortal life, Russian Cosmism was born of both the spirituality of 19th-century Russia and a preoccupation with science and technology. Art Without Death will intertwine historical material from the George Costakis collection — curated by Boris Groys — with contemporary works: Anton Vidokle’s three-part film project Immortality for All! and Arseny Zhilyaev’s installation Intergalactic Mobile Fedorov Museum-Library.

A conference on 1 — 2 September will trace the links between art, science and ideology, and examine the relevance of Cosmism to the present day. Speakers include Robert Bird, Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures in addition to Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Chicago; Boris Groys, philosopher, essayist, and media theorist; Hito Steyerl, artist and filmmaker in the field of essayist documentary video; and Anselm Franke, curator and writer.

Art Without Death: Russian Cosmism will run from 1 September — 3 October 2017 at Haus der Kulturen der Welt in central Berlin. The related conference will take place on 1 — 2 September. Find out more here.