Elena Sorokina appointed curator

Hoger Instituut voor Schone Kunsten (HISK)
Higher Institute for Fine Arts
Charles de Kerchovelaan 187a
9000 Gent
Belgium

www.hisk.edu 

After an intensive search for a new curator that drew more than 90 candidates from Belgium and abroad, the HISK is pleased to announce that Elena Sorokina has been selected for the position. Sorokina, who has in the past years been invited to the HISK as a visiting lecturer and jury member, combines in-depth knowledge of the institution with a broad international expertise as a curator. She is an active and inspired practitioner who has always been committed to supporting and developing emergent artistic practices. Throughout her career, she has worked extensively with artistic and cultural actors from around the globe, and will continue to promote the diversity of artists and scholars that has been one of the HISK’s unique strengths. Sorokina aims to reinvigorate the HISK’s singular model, which combines artist’s residency and individualized support with the thoroughness of a high-level study in the arts, through a new program of collaborations with local and international institutions. Her overall curatorial tasks will also include the academic and studio-visit program, the development of exhibitions and a new series of public programs.

Sorokina is currently working as curatorial advisor for documenta 14 in Athens/Kassel. She is an alumna of the Whitney Museum of American Art ISP in New York, and graduated in art history from the Philosophical Faculty of the Friedrich Wilhelm’s University in Bonn, Germany. In her practice, she embraces both curatorial innovation and critical reflection, with particular emphasis on experimenting with diverse exhibition formats such as the exhibition as a stage, the exhibition as a work space, or the “narrated exhibition,” such as the recently developed Forms of Togetherness (and Separation) for WIELS in Brussels and the Academy of the Art of the World in Cologne. Some of Sorokina’s other projects include: Museum (Science) Fictions at Centre Pompidou, Paris; Spaces of Exception, a special project for the Moscow Biennial; Agnes Varda. Temps Trituré, at LVMH Brussels; the symposium What is a postcolonial exhibition?, a collaborative project of SMBA and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; Etats de L’artifice, Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and On Traders Dilemmas, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San-Francisco. She has published in numerous catalogs, and contributed texts to Artforum, Flash Art, Cabinett Magazine, Manifesta Journal, Moscow Art Magazine, and other publications. Sorokina is a frequent speaker at international conferences and has been invited as lecturer at Centre Pompidou, Paris; Musée Picasso, Paris; WBCA, San Francisco; ISCP, New York; Garage CCC, Moscow; and other institutions.