Moscow Museum of Modern Art is delighted to present the web catalogue for peter_weibel: technē_revolution, the exhibition in which we brought together or reconstructed works by the Austrian artist, theorist and curator Peter Weibel made from the 1960s to the present and exploring various aspects of modern media.

In 2011, Peter Weibel was the curator of the 4th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art Rewriting Worlds, which featured works by media artists from many countries and artistic traditions: today the use of technology in art has become ubiquitous, and some of the most interesting works by contemporary artists involve the use photography, video or computers. This is why we felt the need to take a look at the early beginnings of media art and give our audience the opportunity to see the works by one of its pioneers, who has greatly influenced its development. This project invites the viewer to take a closer look at what has become part of our everyday, to revisit the questions relating to the nature of media, how they reshape our reality and reveal the contradictions of contemporary culture.

Our choice of format was informed by the specificity of the exhibition. A printed edition would not allow to present the work of a media artist in the way the web space does, and I am sure we will be returning to this format again, elaborating it to allow for more opportunities for artists, authors, and readers. This particular catalogue documents the exhibition project: the way it is organized reflects the structure of the exhibition — with the four parts corresponding to the four exhibition floors at MMOMA in Ermolayevsky Lane — so that the reader could get an idea of the actual exhibition after it is over. We are sincerely grateful to Peter Weibel for agreeing to take part in this experiment and for all the materials he has kindly provided for the catalogue.

Vasili Tsereteli
Executive Director

Moscow City Government
Moscow City Department of Culture
Russian Academy of Arts
Moscow Museum of Modern Art
Supported by the Austrian Cultural Forum, Moscow

peter_weibel: technē_revolution

EXHIBITION

Curator: Joseph Backstein
Exhibition design: Kirill Ass, Nadya Korbut
Coordination: Tatiana Sirotina, Lena Solodyankina
Registrar: Sergei Smirnov
All texts handwritten by Natasha Toropitsyna
Graphic design: Kirill Blagodatskikh (Naumova Blagodatskikh)

WEB CATALOGUE

Edited by Lena Solodyankina
Texts: Lena Solodyankina, Joseph Backstein, Peter Weibel
Design: Kirill Blagodatskikh (Naumova Blagodatskikh)
Layout, programming: Andrey Kozhokhin
Project manager: Yuri Kopytov
Moscow Museum of Modern Art, 2015
All rights reserved
All images and photos © Peter Weibel, 2015
All texts © the authors, 2015
Design © Kirill Blagodatskikh (Naumova Blagodatskikh), 2015