Happy New Year!
Vitaly Bezpalov, Arthur Golyakov, Dasha Kuznetsova, Stas Lobachevskiy, Ilya Smirnov, Nastya Vasileva, Vanya Venmer
Curated by PLAGUE
12 December 2020 – 22 January 2021
Plague Space
Zipovskaya street 5, letter B
Krasnodar, Russia
Photography by Angelina Venmer
Happy New Year, Krasnodar!
Happy New Year, World!
Let’s ask ourselves: what makes a new year so new? A calendar becomes a rather arbitrary cause, as it only involves swapping digits. Is that enough to qualify for some-
thing truly new?
Is it even appropriate to talk about new? 2020 novelty wore off not too long ago, but
would it have been better to not have it exist entirely (how many people agree with
me? click yes if you do). Or maybe it would have been better if 2020 became dated
right away and retired on, say, January 8th, 2020. What would the calendar do then?
How would it be? It would have to come up with some way out of that situation. If
2021 came right after, would it be new in that particular scenario? January 9th, 2020
becomes the new year 2021. Here, it came a little later, on December 12th. What happened on that day?
First, a new gallery opened with a new exhibition. Is that a sufficient reason for a new
beginning? We shall see.
Second, the exhibition we opened has the word new in the title. Might that be a sufficient reason for our relentless quest for novelty? Wait for it.
Third, we’ve written a text speculating about the new, about the title of the show,
about what the calendar would do if 2020 died in its sleep on January 8th, 2020. That
should be enough by now. Stop! (there is also fourth)
Fourth, may the new year bring you joy and renewal. No, wait, once again.
Fourth, the Krasnodar region is full of surprises; the number of surprises and the degree to which the population is aware of them, depends on the work of publicity man-
agers of the regional administration. Should we proclaim that Krasnodar communication department gets the job done? That is a completely new angle; we are not ready
to comment on this at the time.
In general, this exhibition is about how difficult it can sometimes be to put on a proper
exhibition. Or, on the contrary, about how easy it can sometimes be to put on a proper
exhibition. We truly wish we could confuse you, not sure if we got it right (click yes).