Draft:Cellule (Exhibition)
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Cellule | |
|---|---|
 Exhibition Cellule. Photo by Jenia Filatova. | |
| Country | France |
| Location | Centre Pompidou, Paris, France |
| Organiser | Maksim Еkaterinovich |
Cellule was a one-day unofficial exhibition held in the cloakroom of the Centre Pompidou in Paris on March 17, 2024. The show featured works by 21 Russian artists, each of whom exhibited their piece inside one of the transparent storage lockers of the museum.
Concept
[edit]“We put things into lockers without breaking the rules. On the contrary, by following the rules, we create an exhibition. The beauty of the idea lies in its alignment with institutional regulations — but not with its expectations,” said the exhibition’s director, Maksim Yekaterinovich.
Each of the 21 participants placed in their cell something they considered personally meaningful. For some, this was a piece of art; for others — items from personal archives. The exhibition merged the personal, intimate, and often vulnerable into a collective statement about the emotional experience of exile, loss, and memory. Without a central curatorial narrative, the individual gestures formed a common story — not directly about war or migration, but about the inner response to them and the effort to remain whole in a dislocated reality.
The title “Cellule” — French for "cell" — evokes multiple meanings: a biological unit, a storage locker, a prison cell, a monastic chamber. It reflects the duality of the space as both a vessel for life and a site of confinement.
Political Context
[edit]The exhibition took place against the backdrop of the Russian presidential elections in March 2024 and the recent death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny in prison. Many of the participating artists had left Russia in protest of the invasion of Ukraine or due to increasing political repression. “Cellule” became a quiet act of defiance — an artistic intervention within one of Europe’s most iconic institutions.
Participants
[edit]Out of 21 participants, 20 were artists who had emigrated from Russia for political reasons. Only one artist, Alisa Gorshenina, continues to live and work in Russia. Her piece was placed at the center of the exhibition — symbolically the “heart” of the show — highlighting the link with those who remain inside the country and preserving the pulse of a reality many were forced to leave.
Participants included both established artists — some of whom have works in the permanent collection of the Centre Pompidou — and younger voices. Each selected independently what to place in their cell: for some, it was a finished artwork; for others, a personal item. On Instagram, where the project was published, it was described as: “A collective statement composed of many private bubbles — individual gestures, chamber worlds. Even if the trauma is collective, the way out of it is always personal.”
Selected artists:
- Andrey Kuzkin — Bread Boy in an Earth Shirt
- Pavel Otdelnov — Swan Lake
- Evgeny Granilshchikov — Three Pieces for a Toy Piano
- Rodion Kitaev — Memories of the Future
- Fedora Akimova — Two Unusable Passports
- Roma Bantik — objects made from melted tank engines
- maksym — Mama
- Stas Falkov — Clown’s Dog
- Sonya Andrews — installation with a bean sprout
- Vanya Volkov — untitled
- Vasily Berezin — Relocatable Nest
- Alexander Morozov — The Glaciology of Memory
- Alexandra and Ivan Afonsky — New Home Again
- Zhenya Filatova — Super Juicy Sexy Flowers
- Maresiy Ivashchenko — DM
- EliKuka (Oleg Eliseev and Evgeny Kukoverov) — Stone in the Sky
- Alisa Gorshenina — Pain
- Anonymous — Trappola
- Anonymous — Sababs
Team
[edit]- Director: Maksim Yekaterinovich
- Co-organizer: Fedora Akimova
- Photographers: Patrick Wack, Zhenya Filatova
Media Coverage
[edit]On March 21, 2024, the independent Russian outlet Meduza published a piece on the exhibition titled "Russian artists opposing the war held a guerrilla exhibition in Paris’s Centre Pompidou." [1]
References
[edit]- Meduza. "Russian artists opposing the war held a guerrilla exhibition in Paris’s Centre Pompidou." Published March 21, 2024. Accessed June 28, 2025.
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