The Italian curator Francesco Bonami, who is also a US citizen, has been appointed the artistic director of GES-2 House of Culture in Moscow. The move comes as Russia’s official relations with Europe continue to deteriorate over the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
The institution—which was opened in 2021 by the billionaire Leonid Mikhelson’s V-A-C Foundation inside an early-20th century power plant opposite the Kremlin—announced the appointment this week. Teresa Iarocci Mavica, the Italian-born co-founder of V-A-C Foundation, stepped down as the head of GES-2 a month after it opened. Alisa Prudnikova, a curator and the founder of the Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art, has overseen programming at GES-2 since 2022 and will stay on until December whereafter she will continue as an independent project curator.
Bonami, who started out as an artist, has previously served as an editor of Flash Art magazine, as well as the artistic director of the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003, the co-curator of Manifesta 3 (2000) and of the Whitney Biennial (2010). He was a senior curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago for nearly a decade. In 2024, he was the curator of Maurizio Cattelan’s first solo gallery exhibition in 20 years, at Gagosian in New York.
GES-2 House of Culture in Moscow © GES-2 House of Culture
Bonami has collaborated with the V-A-C Foundation since 2010. In 2024 he was the co-curator, with Zelfira Tregulova, the former director of the State Tretyakov Gallery, of Square and Space: From Malevich to GES-2—which explored “the important role played by Russian art” in artistic innovation of the 20th century, according to a release. He told Artnews at the time: “Sanctions are economic, not cultural. To sanction culture is a white crime that kills people’s souls.” Meanwhile, Ukrainian art historians have been working to establish Malevich’s identity as a Ukrainian artist at international institutions.
While Europe at large has widely condemned Russia on the cultural stage—the European Union pulled €2m Venice Biennale funding over Russia's participation earlier this year—Italy has been more open. The Biennale’s president, Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, continues to defend his decision to allow Russia back into the international exhibition. Museum exchanges between Russia and EU countries and the UK were suspended after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Mikhelson has not been personally sanctioned by the EU or US since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. However the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Ukraine did impose personal sanctions on him after the invasion. Mikhelson’s daughter Victoria, to whom he transferred ownership of GES-2 in 2023, has not been personally sanctioned by any country but Ukraine.
Bonami did not respond to a request for comment from The Art Newspaper about his appointment. In GES-2’s press release he is quoted as saying that his role as artistic director is to “catalyse artistic energy” and “search for the best projects,” adding: “My experience should help with this.”
In an interview with Moskva 24 television channel, the cultural commentator Eugenia Smurygina emphasised Bonami’s US citizenship. “The artistic director of GES-2 will be an American, an ethnic Italian,” she said. “Isn’t this interesting, in 2026?”
A statement from the GES-2 team sent to The Art Newspaper on 15 October said: “GES-2’s international outlook is integral to its identity, independent of any individual appointment. Francesco Bonami’s appointment reflects this commitment to dialogue and exchange, including the possibility of exhibitions involving artists and cultural practitioners from any country who are open to such engagement.”