Cosmoscow Blog

Audi Born-Digital Award Jury

Ben Vickers is a curator, writer, explorer, publisher, network analyst, technologist and luddite. He is CTO at the Serpentine Galleries in London, co-founder of Ignota Books and an initiator of the open-source monastic order unMonastery. He makes a living and finds a vocation in understanding how systems of distribution, both human and other, come to affect our personal perception of reality. Vickers is currently Curator of Digital at the Serpentine Gallery, co-runs LIMAZULU Project Space, is an active member of EdgeRyders, leads Brighton University’s Professional 'Reality' Development Program and facilitates the development of unMonastery, a new kind of social space designed to serve the local communities of towns or small cities throughout Europe in solving key social and infrastructural problems.

Karen Archey is Curator of Contemporary Art, Time-based Media at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. She is an American curator and art critic formerly based in Berlin and New York, and a 2015 Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant recipient for short-form writing. Since joining the Stedelijk Museum in 2017, Archey has organized solo exhibitions by artists Rineke Dijkstra, Stefan Tcherepnin, Catherine Christer Hennix, Steffani Jemison, Jeff Preiss, and Metahaven, as well as the group exhibition Freedom of Movement: the 2018 Municipal Art Acquisitions. Within the Stedelijk’s performance program she has recently commissioned new works by Ann Hirsch, Alicia Frankovich and artist collective CFGNY. Archey heads the Stedelijk’s research initiative on the acquisition and documentation of time-based media. Archey previously worked as an independent curator and editor for the New York-based organization e-flux. In 2014, she organized with Robin Peckham the exhibition “Art Post-Internet” at Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing. She frequently gives lectures on contemporary art and time-based media.

Melanie Bühler is the curator contemporary art at the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem (NL) since 2018, founder of the Lunch Bytes project. Prior to this, she worked as an independent curator. Selected, recent exhibitions include Image Power. Institutional Critique Today (Frans Hals Museum, 2020), Noise! (Frans Hals Museum, 2018), Photography Today: Private Public Relations (Pinakothek der Moderne, 2017), and Inflected Objects – an exhibition series at Future Gallery, Berlin; De Hallen Haarlem (both 2016) and Swiss Institute Milan (2015). She is the founder and curator of Lunch Bytes (2010-2015) — a project on digital art and culture for which she collaborated with Art Basel; CCA, Glasgow; ICA, London; and Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. a.o. She is responsible for No Internet, No Art (Onomatopee 2015), co-edited The Transhistorical Museum (Valiz, 2018) and her writings have appeared in various exhibition catalogues and art magazines, such as Metropolis M and Mousse Magazine.

Daria Mille is a curator and research associate at the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe. Her recent projects include exhibitions „Critical Zones. Observatories for Earthly Politics“ (2020), „Negative Space. Trajectories of Sculpture“ (2019), „Art in Motion. 100 Masterpieces with and through Media“ (2018), “Art in Europe 1945-1968: Facing the Future” (2016), “Infosphere” (2015) and “Schlosslichtspiele” (2015). After studying art history and cultural management in St. Petersburg, Weimar and Paris, Daria Mille worked as curatorial assistant to the artistic director of the 3rd and 4th Moscow Biennales for Contemporary Art between 2008 and 2011. Since 2013 she has been a curator at the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, where she previously completed her academic traineeship from 2011-2013. Her research focuses on institutional critique and museum strategies of the avant-garde, artistic positions of the 1960s, and contemporary art.

Aristarkh Chernyshev is an artist and curator, pioneer of net art. He was born in Voroshilovgrad (Lugansk), USSR, in 1968. Graduated from The Moscow State Technical University in 1991. He has been working in-between new media and contemporary art since early 90’s. From 1996 to 2005 he has produced several interactive installations together with Vladislav Efimov. From 2000 to 2004 he was running Media Lab at the National Center for Contemporary Arts in Moscow. Aristarkh has participated in numerous exhibitions and festivals both in Russia and internationally. In 2004 he has co-founded Electroboutique gallery in Moscow. . In 2014 he has co-founded Electromuseum gallery in Moscow. His works have appeared in major International art fairs and at galleries around the world including the London Science Museum, Whitechapel Gallery, Museum Art Architecture Technology Lisboa, Seoul Museum of Art, the National Art Museum of China, Multimedia Art Museum Moscow, the Museum of Moscow, Moscow Museum of Modern Art. Aristarkh Chernyshev lives and works in Moscow.

Nadim Samman read Philosophy at University College London before receiving his PhD from the Courtauld Institute of Art. He was Co-Director of Import Projects e.V. in Berlin from 2012 to 2019 and, concurrently, Curator at Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna (2013-2015). He curated the 4th Marrakech Biennale (with Carson Chan) in 2012, and the 5th Moscow Biennale for Young Art in 2015. He co-founded and co-curated the 1st Antarctic Biennale (2017) and the Antarctic Pavilion (Venice, 2015-). In 2014 Foreign Policy Magazine named him among the ‘100 Leading Global Thinkers’. Widely published, in 2019 he was First Prize recipient of the International Award for Art Criticism (IAAC). He is currently Curator at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin.

Alexander Burenkov is a curator of non-profit Cosmoscow foundation for support of contemporary art, researcher, art critic and teacher. He was the curator at the V-A-C Foundation (2013–2016), curator at the experimental project space ISSMAG gallery (2016–2017), chief specialist of the Regional Development Directorate of the National Center for Contemporary Art (ROSIZO-NCCA) (2017–2018), curator of the renovated Khodynka Gallery (2019). Curator of the international retrospective exhibition of the oldest biennale of contemporary art in Russia «Shiryaevo Biennale. Central Russian Zen» (2017), curator of the symposium-on-tour of the NCCA-ROSIZO's strategic project Nemoskva and nomadic exhibition of ideas of unrealized projects by artists from Russian regions «Big Country, Big Ideas» (2018, visited 12 cities of the country). Recipient of Russia’s Innovation Art Prize (2017) as the Curator of the Year for the exhibition “Planned obsolescence” at Miltronic body/digital gym center, in the framework of the parallel program of the V Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, 2016. Nominee of the State Prize in Contemporary Art “Innovation” (2018) in the nomination “Curator of the Year” and Kuryokhin Art Prize (2018) in the nomination “Curator of the Year” for the project “Going Unconscious / Trembling / With open eyes / I see you / Surrender” in HSE Art gallery of the School of Design of the Higher School of Economics. He teaches curatorial research and exhibition design projects at Sreda Obuchenia School and RMA art management and curatorial school.

Cosmoscow Art Director Simon Rees is a former director of New Zealand’s contemporary art museum, and the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery. Prior he was head of programming and development at the MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts/Contemporary Art (2011-2013). Mr. Rees is best known for his work at the CAC, Vilnius (2004–2011) and writing and curating in post-communist Europe; including for the prize winning national pavilion he led as commissioner for Lithuania at the Venice Biennale (2007). Mr. Rees has sat on boards and juries of a host of organizations and awards internationally, including those of the contemporary art fairs in Vienna (AT), Auckland (NZ), and Innovation Prize (Moscow). Simon Rees was a regular visitor to Moscow from 2005–2014 for the purpose of writing and research and inter-institutional collaborations, engaging with the city’s most important exhibitions and events (including those associated with the Moscow Biennial).

The list of Jury members also included Margarita Pushkina, Cosmoscow Founding Director and Lubomir Najman, Head of Audi Russia.