General Rehearsal

General Rehearsal is a multidisciplinary project conceived and realised in collaboration with the Moscow Museum of Modern Art. This content-rich presentation will combine three international art collections and feature work by over one hundred artists. Designed to evolve and change like a living organism that adapts and responds to its environment, General Rehearsal adopts the structure of a theatrical play, developing over three acts staged over a five-month period. With the project V-A-C introduces a more fluid, transparent method of working collectively and engaging all disciplines equally.

Act 1. Theater of Mutual Operations — The Seagull: April, 26 – June, 17
Putting on The Seagull outside the setting of a theater is something entertaining in itself. This greatest classic of the Russian stage is here placed in an ill-suited environment—the museum space. This new situation therefore plays host to a rethinking of the dramatic genre. Along with this, works of art also find themselves in unusual given circumstances, ful- filling the role of actors.

Act 2. Armen Avanessian — Metaphysics From The Future: June, 21 – July, 22
In the second act, the Austrian philosopher, literary and political theorist Armen Avanessian explores key philosophical issues for the future, which are: ‘Why metaphysics?, Substance and Accident, Form and Matter, Life and Death, the Human, Time, Thinking (truth), Reality and Realism, Institutions, Politics and Speculation’. He has orchestrated a series of 11 scenes corresponding to the chapters of a book he will potentially write in the aftermath of this commission. As the act unfolds in the 11 rooms of the museum’s main gallery, the selected artworks and their interaction bring into question the traditional concepts that have structured Western thinking from the perspective of the present.

Act 3. Maria Stepanova — No-one’s: Act 3: July, 27 – September, 16
No-one’s is a production about biographies, functionality and the status of things and objects. It is a play about objects rather than about their owners. The writer encourages us to reflect on which of the myriad of things and artworks around us catch our attention and why. What does it mean to be a museum piece or be incorporated into another assemblage, such as an exhibition or a collection? Who arranges objects into compositions for us to view, and why? How do we perceive and decipher them? These are the questions Maria Stepanova poses in the Third Act of General Rehearsal, by adding the objects that tell her own history to the works by Warhol, Bourgeois, Manzoni and over 150 other artists.

Again, More Stories is an online project that will run parallel to the Second Act. The platform will offer resources related to General Rehearsal, such as featured artworks, performances, various texts and videos, and enable visitors to make up their own exhibition routes for the show and add their own interpretations, making visitors additional authors of the General Rehearsal project.

For more information please visit V-A-C Foundation.