“Balcony Gallery”, Zagreb, Croatia, 2020
I got the idea to open a gallery on my balcony after March 2020 when lockdown was introduced in Zagreb where I participated in an international program for artists. My planned exhibition at a local gallery was cancelled, and I decided that I could use my balcony, where I would then host around 20 exhibitions. The Balcony Gallery opened with the show How to Become Invisible addressing the invisible labor in culture. Then, I put two watercolours titled Quarantine Outfit as a response to the obligation to wear masks. It was followed by Zoom Portraits (portraits of friends after calls). The next shows responded to the questions of what kind of physical world and its inhabitants surround us, what could I see from my balcony. The result was the exhibition titled Zagreb City Dogs. Exhibition For The Birds deserves a special mention, as it was made for my regular winged audience, and I painted portraits of bluebirds. The month's anniversary exhibition presented the installation with drawings made on toilet paper, it was titled When You Are Run Out Of Drawing Paper, You Have TP.
Later I began inviting other artists to participate in this project. The first one was Jolanta Nowaczyk who made a flag with an inscription The New Normal. Other projects were Many Thanks to the Doctors by Alexander Anufriev, Registered Letter by Darya Serenko, record of Chingiz Aidarov’s action Invasion, Roman Mokrov’s photo Swimming Into Summer. After my return to Moscow, the Balcony Gallery was installed at Cosmoscow Art Fair where it served as venue to showcase my projects and works by Alexander Anufriev, Margo Ovcharenko, portraits by Evgenia Eremina, a performance by Varvara Grankova. I plan to transform Balcony into a traveling gallery and open it at locations that I find myself in. It is important for me that the gallery has no clearly outlined program, that it can emerge spontaneously in different places and display absolutely different artists.
Balcony Gallery, Cosmoscow Art Fair, Moscow, 2020
The exhibition was organized by the Cultural Creative Agency with the support go the Embassy of the State of Qatar to the Russian Federation.
In her project “The Balcony’ Gallery”, Ekaterina Muromtseva acts as a gallerist, a curator and an artist at the same time creating not only a space for her own statement but provides a forum for her fellow authors: Evgenia Yeremina, Margo Ovcharenko, Alexander Anufriev and Varvara Grankova. Portraits have become the main thread of the exhibition program of the gallery.
Photo credits: Ivan Erofeev
