Anatoly Osmolovsky’s BAZA Institute now accepting applications

Radek Community, Against Everyone!, 1999, Moscow

Avdei Ter-Oganyan’s “School of Contemporary Art” (1995-1998) famously started off as a punchline and ended up creating a generation. Students including the artist’s son David Ter-Oganyan, Alexey Buldakov and Valery Shtak would go on to form the Radek Community. When, in 1998, Avdei went into self-exile following his much-scandalized attack on Orthodox icons, Anatoly Osmolovsky took over the instruction, leading the younger artists in actions like Barricades (1998) or Against Everyone (1999), for which the group stormed the Lenin mausoleum, unfurling a banner with the title words printed in large letters. (For a more in-depth history of Radek, check out David Riff’s blog.)

Since this time, there have been quite a few attempts at founding a contemporary art school within Russia (which still maintains a State Art Academy.) Among the most noteworthy of such attempts are Joseph Backstein’s Institute of Problems of Contemporary Art and Katya Degot at the Rodchenko Moscow School of Photography and Multimedia, and most recently, the Strelka Institute, which grafted Rem Koolhaas’ curriculum onto the specific urban environment of Moscow (the Institute is now involved with redeveloping Gorky Park.) Osmolovsky has taken on students of his own as well, including Anya Titova, Arseny Zhilaev and Sergey Ogurtsov.

Anatoly Osmolovsky, documentation from The Way to Brobdingnag, 1993, Moscow

In 2011, Osmolovsky launched a new magazine with Ogurtsov, entitled BAZA (Read an English translation of an interview with Ogurtsov for the specifics.) Now he has announced the next step in his program, the official founding of a tuition-based school, the BAZA Institute. The Institute will combine curriculum for art practice and art history, although the students will maintain the two separate tracks. In addition to Osmolovsky, students will have workshops with figures like Oleg Kulik.

The first semester will run from March through July. Applications will be accepted from now through February 10th. For more information on enrolling in this (Russian-language) course, please refer to the site.