Michael Najjar
"Clouds ⇄ Forests"

7th Moscow International Biennale of Contemporary Art
The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

19 September 2017 ‐ 18 January 2018

The 7th Moscow International Biennale of Contemporary Art takes place in the New Tretyakov Gallery (The State Tretyakov Gallery, 10, Krymsky Val, Moscow) from 19 September 2017 to 18 January 2018. The Main Project Clouds⇄Forests is curated by Yuko Hasegawa - one of the leading curators in the international art world - and includes 52 artists from 25 countries.

The concept of Clouds⇄Forests focuses on a new eco-system formed through the circulation of "Cloud Tribes" born on the Internet cloud space, and "Forest Tribes" born in an analogue world. Works of the artists in the Main Project are displayed in dialogue with works from the permanent exhibition of The State Tretyakov Gallery.

Michael Najjar has been invited to participate in the Biennale with several large-scale artworks from his celebrated "outer space" series. On view for the first time will be his "liquid time" triptych, created especially for the Biennale. This work highlights the fragility of our ecological balance and the significance of the change of state from ice to water because glaciers are storehouses of time - layer on layer they capture the air, water and oxygen of countless thousands of years. The picture was taken in early 2017 in an ice cave under the Breiðamerkurjökull glacier in Iceland.

Also on view, in the All-Russian State Library, will be Michael Najjar´s striking new video artwork "terraforming". The work focuses on transformation of a natural environment through energy input and combines footage taken on various locations in Iceland in early 2017 with Martian landscapes shot by NASA´s Curiosity Mars rover.

More information: moscowbiennale.com