Launch of the KALEKTAR portal

Today, March 30, 2015, the Internet portal kalektar.org is launched.

_{Photograph by Sergei Shabohin, 2015 / © – reproductions of works by Belarusian artists Vasily Vasilyev, Alexei Velikzhanin, Yegor Galuzo, Zhanna Grak, Andrei Dureiko, Alexander Korablev, Artur Klinov, Alexander Komarov, Alexei Lunev, Ales Pushkin, Lyudmila Rusova, Olga Sazykina, Tamara Sokolova, Anna Shkolnikova}

is a journalistic resource of the research platform of contemporary Belarusian art.

The portal will bring together various initiatives that are already working and ready for implementation within the framework of the KALEKTAR platform. Independent projects of the platform have their own editorial teams and goals and will be represented by their own sites within the portal's unified information system.

Plans

The nearest plans of the platform include the consistent development and connection of the encyclopedic database of contemporary Belarusian art , which will become the main tool that unites the autonomous projects of the platform. The data system will be filled according to the principle of an Internet encyclopedia in the form of information pages about names, key events and institutions in the system of Belarusian contemporary art. A terminological glossary will also be developed. A large number of experts and participants in the system of Belarusian art will be involved in the activities of the encyclopedia.

In the near future, the platform is preparing to launch a research project – a resource that regularly publishes essays on significant statements created by artists, groups, curators and institutions in Belarusian art over the past decades. ZBOR will be an archive under constant construction. The main objectives of the project are to preserve, comprehend and popularize the experience of contemporary Belarusian art.

The construction of an archive, as the main goal of the KALEKTAR platform, will be supported by other tools planned for launch: the creation and filling of a pdf library and a media library.

The KALEKTAR platform has consolidated already started independent projects around common tasks: – a resource about contemporary Belarusian art and blog . Both projects – the Art section of the Art Aktivist portal and the FAK blog will become part of the KALEKTAR portal, integrating into a common information system.

As part of the platform's activities, special public events will be held: exhibitions, seminars, discussions, presentations, publications, and much more. Stay tuned.

History of creation

The research platform of contemporary Belarusian art KALEKTAR was founded in 2014 on the initiative of , and .

Artist Sergey Kiryushchenko published an article on the Art Aktivist portal in 2014, in which he invited the community to think about the idea of creating a private museum of contemporary art M21. After a long discussion of the presented project with various experts, the artist Sergey Shabohin joined the development of the concept, with whom they rethought the expediency and timeliness of the proposal to form a museum. As a result, the project received significant transformations towards research activities and the creation of an open archive, rather than a museum. It was decided to create an archive in the form of an open Internet resource, which was conceived as a work in progress – a site constantly filled with archival information. In order to create the most diverse and wide archive, it became necessary to combine disparate strategies and sources of information. Together with curator Alexey Borisyonok, the artists developed a common project to create a research platform KALEKTAR, which combines various initiatives and approaches to creating an archive: conducting research (ZBOR) and events (public program), maintaining a regular magazine about current events (Art Aktivist) and an educational blog (FAC), creation of an encyclopedia (INDEX) and a media library.

The platform was created primarily due to dissatisfaction with the situation in Belarusian contemporary art, as well as the relative invisibility of the experience of Belarusian art in the Eastern European and international context. By inertia, the official cultural policy of Belarus retained the features of the Soviet period, borrowing a centralized vertical bureaucratic system of culture management. On the one hand, the current political regime in the mid-1990s abolished or extremely complicated the activities of independent institutions (non-state galleries, foundations, associations), as well as criminalized foreign funding, which led to a long-term stagnation of the art system and the absence of an institution for the study of contemporary Belarusian art, which would carry out archival activities and promote integration into the international artistic context. As a result, during the reassessment of the artistic experience of Eastern Europe in all major studies of the 1990–2000s, Belarus was practically excluded from the general archive, remaining a "blank spot" on the map of Eastern European art. Despite the fact that there are various official institutions in the country, their activities are devoid of effective research and archival work in the field of contemporary art and do not stand up to criticism.

After 2005, in the environment of independent culture, noticeable processes of activation and consolidation of the art community were observed, which led to the opening of non-state institutions - galleries, publications, Internet portals, research and exhibitions. At the moment, a lot of material has been collected that needs to be preserved and accumulated information and experience in order to create an open archive of Belarusian contemporary art. It is important to do this not only in order to avoid the loss and oblivion of the next period in the development of art, but also as an example of the struggle against the arbitrariness of official cultural policy.

Thus, it was decided to create an independent research platform of Belarusian contemporary art KALEKTAR, which should combine the efforts and experience of the largest number of experts to create, analyze and publish archives of the art scene, critically assess the Belarusian cultural system, and promote the statements of Belarusian authors in the country and beyond. outside. The creators of the platform have already begun active work with a large number of experts in the field of contemporary Belarusian art and hope that everyone will participate in the formation of a common archive.

The KALEKTAR platform and all its projects are non-commercial and non-governmental. The project, all content of the resource and the portal itself are registered in Bialystok by our legal partners. The platform is open for inclusion in the activities and construction of the archive for all interested.

Worked on the launch of the portal

_{Platform leaders:}
, and

_{Project manager:}

_{Portal design:}
Sergeн Shabohin

_{Development and programming:}
interactive brand studio HA

_{We personally thank everyone who provided support and assistance in launching the resource:} , , , , , , , , , ,