Pushkin House is presenting a closing event for ‘Desire International’: an online discussion with the participating artists, Yevgeniy Fiks and Ian Ginsburg. They will be joined by Iara Boubnova, the director of the National Gallery of Bulgaria, where Fiks’s project travels next month, and Dr Denis Stolyarov, assistant curator at Pushkin House.

‘Desire International’ is a two-artist exhibition exploring the utopianism of queer sensuality and imagination on view till 26 February. The exhibition became a starting point for a broad cultural discussion initiated by Pushkin House about the cultural potentials of gender- and sexual non-conformity, and the challenges and opportunities that queer communities face in Russia, across the post-Soviet space and the UK.

The discussion will provide the opportunity for the artists and curators to discuss various aspects of both projects: Dictionary of the Queer International and A Barrack Named Desire: Reframing Viktor Duvidov. There are many aspects of the work to explore: artists’ inspirations, motivations and visions behind the projects, their significance beyond Pushkin House and the UK, the issues of authorship, re-contextualisations and solidarity, as well as the legacies of Moscow Conceptualism.

Iara Boubnova (b. 1961, Moscow) is the Director of the National Gallery of Bulgaria, a curator and art critic. She curated the Bulgarian pavilions at the 48 Biennale di Venezia (1999, together with Nedko Solakov); the 22nd Sao Paulo Biennial (1994); the 4th Istanbul Biennial (1995); the 3rd Biennial in Cetinje, Montenegro, Yugoslavia (1997) and the Tirana Biennial (2001). She lives and works in Sofia.

Yevgeniy Fiks (b. 1972, Moscow) is an artist reflecting in his work on the dialectical relationship between Soviet socialism and ‘the West’, the legacies of international communist utopia and histories of sexual and gender dissent. In his projects he often relies on archival research and collaboration. Fiks lives and works in New York.

Ian Ginsburg (b. 1988, Moscow) creates complex homages to artists of previous generations, mainly those whose artistic development defined Soviet culture in 1960s–1970s. Exploring both formal approaches and ideological structures of their work, Ginsburg approximates their methodological positions by creating imaginary archives of carefully constructed forms and images. Ginsburg lives and works in Moscow.

For more information about the exhibition and the artists see the exhibition page.