ABOUT
Still Poor, Less Sexy, and Battered: How Recent Years Have Changed the Meaning of Post-Soviet Chic
POOR BUT SEXY
BARRIERA UNINSTITUTE
GENETIC / Jenna Marvin, Anastasia Kreslina, MRZB
Brilla Brilla e Scompari / Alan Stefanato
NO GATEKEEPERS FOR MY HEART / FRANKO B
HOW YOU DARE? / Publication
Untitled (Seduta in Ufficio Circondata da Teste e Corpi)
HOW YOU DARE?
FVDSFL / Maurizio Cilli
TUNSTATE / Aslı Çavuşoğlu
On The Blade / Maria Proshkowska
Smarginate
Pantomima XXX / Alan Stefanato
Ginnastica Museale / Franco Ariaudo
Why Me?/ Pietro Agostoni
Seraphita / Gianni Ferrero Merlino
Una corrente li trascinava nella notte
Le Stanze di Mauve in ciò che è conosciuto come
il Reame dell’Irreale / MRZB book
Nothing More Than Feelings / Davide La Montagna
Le Stanze di Mauve in ciò che è conosciuto come
il Reame dell’Irreale / MRZB show
LOOK AT ME! Sulla questione dell’identità
Warm Till I Burn / Paolo Peroni
I Call Your Name / Agnieszka Polska
BASILISK / Franco Ariaudo
Faster Than Christ / Franco Ariaudo
HOPE SANK TEETH INTO THE NIGHT / Apparatus 22
METASITU about METASITU
Can I see your work? Just a shadow of a shadow / Paolo Inverni
Faccio colazione, mi cambio ed esco
CONTACT
POOR BUT SEXY
BARRIERA UNINSTITUTE
GENETIC / Jenna Marvin, Anastasia Kreslina, MRZB
Brilla Brilla e Scompari / Alan Stefanato
NO GATEKEEPERS FOR MY HEART / FRANKO B
HOW YOU DARE? / Publication
Untitled (Seduta in Ufficio Circondata da Teste e Corpi)
HOW YOU DARE?
FVDSFL / Maurizio Cilli
TUNSTATE / Aslı Çavuşoğlu
On The Blade / Maria Proshkowska
Smarginate
Pantomima XXX / Alan Stefanato
Ginnastica Museale / Franco Ariaudo
Why Me?/ Pietro Agostoni
Seraphita / Gianni Ferrero Merlino
Una corrente li trascinava nella notte
Le Stanze di Mauve in ciò che è conosciuto come
il Reame dell’Irreale / MRZB book
Nothing More Than Feelings / Davide La Montagna
Le Stanze di Mauve in ciò che è conosciuto come
il Reame dell’Irreale / MRZB show
LOOK AT ME! Sulla questione dell’identità
Warm Till I Burn / Paolo Peroni
I Call Your Name / Agnieszka Polska
BASILISK / Franco Ariaudo
Faster Than Christ / Franco Ariaudo
HOPE SANK TEETH INTO THE NIGHT / Apparatus 22
METASITU about METASITU
Can I see your work? Just a shadow of a shadow / Paolo Inverni
Faccio colazione, mi cambio ed esco
CONTACT
Sergey Kantsedal is a curator based in Turin.
He is currently running a non-profit space BARRIERA. Through a series of exhibitions and long-term projects, this institution creates opportunities for dialogue between artists, curators, collectors and engenders contamination with other cultural environments and disciplinary perspectives.
His curatorial practice explores a diverse range of interests that intersect artistic, musical, and fashion perspectives. His most current research delves into archives as abundant sources of inspiration and hidden potential.
Over the years, he has collaborated with various public and private institutions in Italy and internationally: Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo and Officine Grandi Riparazioni (OGR) in Turin; Triennale Milano, Fabbrica del Vapore and MUDEC Museo delle Culture in Milan; Cittadellarte - Fondazione Pistoletto in Biella, MAMbo - Museo d’Arte Contemporanea in Bologna, PinchukArtCentre and National Art Museum in Kyiv.
He took part in MEDITERRANEA 18, Young Artists Biennial in Tirana and a transnational research program A Natural Oasis? (San Marino-Kosovo-Montenegro-Malta). In 2024, he was a curator in residency at Salzburger Kunstverein (Austria).
He graduated from the State Academy of Design and Arts of Kharkiv, attended Third Moscow Curatorial Summer School by V-A-C Foundation and CAMPO, curatorial practices course at Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin (2015-2016).
He is currently running a non-profit space BARRIERA. Through a series of exhibitions and long-term projects, this institution creates opportunities for dialogue between artists, curators, collectors and engenders contamination with other cultural environments and disciplinary perspectives.
His curatorial practice explores a diverse range of interests that intersect artistic, musical, and fashion perspectives. His most current research delves into archives as abundant sources of inspiration and hidden potential.
Over the years, he has collaborated with various public and private institutions in Italy and internationally: Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo and Officine Grandi Riparazioni (OGR) in Turin; Triennale Milano, Fabbrica del Vapore and MUDEC Museo delle Culture in Milan; Cittadellarte - Fondazione Pistoletto in Biella, MAMbo - Museo d’Arte Contemporanea in Bologna, PinchukArtCentre and National Art Museum in Kyiv.
He took part in MEDITERRANEA 18, Young Artists Biennial in Tirana and a transnational research program A Natural Oasis? (San Marino-Kosovo-Montenegro-Malta). In 2024, he was a curator in residency at Salzburger Kunstverein (Austria).
He graduated from the State Academy of Design and Arts of Kharkiv, attended Third Moscow Curatorial Summer School by V-A-C Foundation and CAMPO, curatorial practices course at Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin (2015-2016).
Still Poor, Less Sexy, and Battered: How Recent Years Have Changed the Meaning of Post-Soviet Chic
talk, with Agata Pyzik
April 4, 2025
eastcontemporary, Milan
"Poor But Sexy: Culture Clashes in Europe East and West" was written in 2012–13 to examine the post-communist East’s exploitation by the neoliberal West. Over a decade later, while Eastern Europe's economic situation has improved, the region faces its greatest political upheaval since 1989—marked by three years of Russian invasion in Ukraine and escalating threats to liberal democracy. Meanwhile, the West grapples with a profound moral and ideological crisis. Can contemporary art and culture once again help us make sense of these shifts?
In this lecture, Agata Pyzik, author of the eponymous book, will examine whether and why post-Cold War East-West inequality is still an issue, disrupting the lives of entire nations. She will also examine how artists featured in the exhibition POOR BUT SEXY, curated by Sergey Kantsedal at eastcontemporary gallery, challenge these dynamics through their work.
Agata Pyzik is a writer, art critic, and author of Poor but Sexy: Culture Clashes in Europe East and West (Zero, 2014) and A Girl and a Gun: A Memoir (Pamoja Press, 2020). She contributes regularly to Artforum, Frieze, and The Guardian, among others.
talk, with Agata Pyzik
April 4, 2025
eastcontemporary, Milan
"Poor But Sexy: Culture Clashes in Europe East and West" was written in 2012–13 to examine the post-communist East’s exploitation by the neoliberal West. Over a decade later, while Eastern Europe's economic situation has improved, the region faces its greatest political upheaval since 1989—marked by three years of Russian invasion in Ukraine and escalating threats to liberal democracy. Meanwhile, the West grapples with a profound moral and ideological crisis. Can contemporary art and culture once again help us make sense of these shifts?
In this lecture, Agata Pyzik, author of the eponymous book, will examine whether and why post-Cold War East-West inequality is still an issue, disrupting the lives of entire nations. She will also examine how artists featured in the exhibition POOR BUT SEXY, curated by Sergey Kantsedal at eastcontemporary gallery, challenge these dynamics through their work.
Agata Pyzik is a writer, art critic, and author of Poor but Sexy: Culture Clashes in Europe East and West (Zero, 2014) and A Girl and a Gun: A Memoir (Pamoja Press, 2020). She contributes regularly to Artforum, Frieze, and The Guardian, among others.
POOR BUT SEXY
Anastasia Sosunova, Mila Panic, Ala Savashevich, Dominika Olszowy, Miroslav Tichý and Nikita Kadan
- exhibition, curator
POOR BUT SEXY takes its title from the iconic phrase coined by former Berlin mayor Klaus Wowereit. The slogan was designed to rebrand the post-Wall city as a raw, seductive destination for the West, with its low-cost labour and vast infrastructure. It also stands as an emblem of how, from a pro-Western perspective, the fate of the East after 1989 was framed and sold. But there’s more: it reflects the ongoing polarisation between East and West, as described in Poor But Sexy: Culture Clashes in Europe East and West by Polish author Agata Pyzik (2014, Zer0 Books). Pyzik’s book delves into the "hidden" history of the East, focusing on its troubled and somewhat submissive relationship with the “West”. From artistic practices to subcultures, from post-punk to Bowie’s fascination with the Eastern Bloc, from orientalism to self-colonization, Pyzik’s work rejects both nostalgia for the “good old days” and the desire to become a “normal” part of Europe.
Starting from this provocation, POOR BUT SEXY presents works by Ala Savashevich (1989, Belarus), Anastasia Sosunova (1993, Lithuania), Dominika Olszowy (1988, Poland), Mila Panić (1991, Bosnia and Herzegovina), Miroslav Tichý (1926–2011, Czech Republic), and Nikita Kadan (1982, Ukraine). Exploring various perspectives and micro-narratives spanning generations, artistic languages, and geographies, the exhibition functions as a time capsule—a glimpse into the living archive of a fractured and oblique present we inhabit. Each work relates intimately to the others, occupying a shared realm where experiences, genealogies, and cultural micro-histories intersect. A sense of belonging is questioned introspectively—not as a subject, but more as an attitude. Playful yet serious—poor but sexy in every sense—the exhibition triggers a conversation that develops across time and space, sparking a dialogue between objects, bodies, fantasies, and dreams.
Article on FRIEZE
Anastasia Sosunova, Mila Panic, Ala Savashevich, Dominika Olszowy, Miroslav Tichý and Nikita Kadan
- exhibition, curator
04/03 – 12/04/2025eastcontemporary, MilanPOOR BUT SEXY takes its title from the iconic phrase coined by former Berlin mayor Klaus Wowereit. The slogan was designed to rebrand the post-Wall city as a raw, seductive destination for the West, with its low-cost labour and vast infrastructure. It also stands as an emblem of how, from a pro-Western perspective, the fate of the East after 1989 was framed and sold. But there’s more: it reflects the ongoing polarisation between East and West, as described in Poor But Sexy: Culture Clashes in Europe East and West by Polish author Agata Pyzik (2014, Zer0 Books). Pyzik’s book delves into the "hidden" history of the East, focusing on its troubled and somewhat submissive relationship with the “West”. From artistic practices to subcultures, from post-punk to Bowie’s fascination with the Eastern Bloc, from orientalism to self-colonization, Pyzik’s work rejects both nostalgia for the “good old days” and the desire to become a “normal” part of Europe.
Starting from this provocation, POOR BUT SEXY presents works by Ala Savashevich (1989, Belarus), Anastasia Sosunova (1993, Lithuania), Dominika Olszowy (1988, Poland), Mila Panić (1991, Bosnia and Herzegovina), Miroslav Tichý (1926–2011, Czech Republic), and Nikita Kadan (1982, Ukraine). Exploring various perspectives and micro-narratives spanning generations, artistic languages, and geographies, the exhibition functions as a time capsule—a glimpse into the living archive of a fractured and oblique present we inhabit. Each work relates intimately to the others, occupying a shared realm where experiences, genealogies, and cultural micro-histories intersect. A sense of belonging is questioned introspectively—not as a subject, but more as an attitude. Playful yet serious—poor but sexy in every sense—the exhibition triggers a conversation that develops across time and space, sparking a dialogue between objects, bodies, fantasies, and dreams.
Article on FRIEZE
BARRIERA UNINSTITUTE
The Aftershow Book: A Critical Inventory of Documents
- book, editor
Published by viaindustriae
Edition of 400 copies, black and white, two different covers
The book includes five contributions — Apparatus 22, MRZB, Katya Kabalina, Franco Ariaudo, Francesco Cavaliere — made specifically for the publication along with a selection of “archival materials”, such as exhibition catalogs, invitations, gallery texts, postcards, leaflets, and booklets, ‘lateral’ to the artistic and curatorial production developed during seventeen years of history of BARRIERA — non-profit space founded by a group of collectors in 2007 in Torino.
Following this predominantly visual, asynchronous, and “eccentric” documentary section, the book organizes an index with events, exhibitions, catalogues, and all artists who have passed through BARRIERA’s space.
Buy here
The Aftershow Book: A Critical Inventory of Documents
- book, editor
Published by viaindustriae
Edition of 400 copies, black and white, two different covers
The book includes five contributions — Apparatus 22, MRZB, Katya Kabalina, Franco Ariaudo, Francesco Cavaliere — made specifically for the publication along with a selection of “archival materials”, such as exhibition catalogs, invitations, gallery texts, postcards, leaflets, and booklets, ‘lateral’ to the artistic and curatorial production developed during seventeen years of history of BARRIERA — non-profit space founded by a group of collectors in 2007 in Torino.
Following this predominantly visual, asynchronous, and “eccentric” documentary section, the book organizes an index with events, exhibitions, catalogues, and all artists who have passed through BARRIERA’s space.
Buy here
