All exhibitions
The Great Disorder
A two-part major exhibition by HSE Art and Design School
December 12, 2025 - February 1, 2026
Rating: 12+
Curated by: Alexandra Kuznetsova, Masha Dantsis, and Vassa Pyrkova
In December, the HSE Art and Design School presented a major exhibition titled The Great Disorder; it was a large-scale project bringing together artists, designers, researchers, and educators reflecting on chaos as one of the fundamental forms of the world's existence.
The Major Exhibition is an annual event organized by the HSE Art and Design School since 2021. Each edition is dedicated to a "big theme" explored by students, alumni, and teachers across all disciplines.
This year, for the first time, the open call was available not only to current students, graduates, and faculty of the Design School but also to independent artists. The open call was hosted by art.mediiia - a space created in partnership with the Design School, where contemporary artists and curators present their projects, art historians publish research, and critics review cultural events.
"Normally, for our annual exhibitions we propose a broad and relevant theme and invite artists affiliated with the HSE Art and Design School to submit their entries. This time out, however, we thought it would be interesting to make the open call accessible to everyone, thus expanding dialogue among artists. On the one hand, this new approach attracted quite a lot of applicants; on the other, through the selection process we hope to achieve a compelling polyphonic narrative at the exhibition. My colleagues and me tried to handle the selection with an open mind, displaying both naive works by emerging artists and pieces by established names within a single space. We believe such juxtapositions are essential for the contemporary art scene, which often prefers better-known artists,"
the exhibition curators said.
Like the previous years, the project took place across two venues, with exhibitions united by a shared concept.
› EXHIBITION CONCEPT
The Great Disorder addresses the phenomenon of chaos - philosophical, physical, cultural, and human. While in Greek mythology chaos was understood as the primordial, disordered matter from which the world emerged, contemporary thinkers view it as the foundation of continuous change, disintegration, and renewal. The exhibition's artists propose considering disorder not as destruction but as a driver of evolution - a formative space and a source of energy.
In this Major Exhibition, we would like to explore various attitudes toward disorder and the countless forms it can take: the phenomenon of growing entropy, the messiness of the everyday, and the imminent global chaos; the idea that the universe may be moving toward self-destruction - or perhaps that chaos is actually the ultimate form of order.
To demonstrate the scope of possible artistic interpretations, the exhibition is structured into several sections each spotlighting its main narratives.
› EXHIBITION DESIGN
As this project brings together a wide range of artists, the exhibition design and scenography serve as key unifying elements. The space of the exhibition becomes a "total installation" - or a "meta-installation," as Alexandra Kuznetsova describes it. On the one hand, this represents a departure from the neutral, sterile exhibition environment; on the other, it is an attempt to unite many diverse artistic voices into a cohesive and captivating narrative.
Each section functions as an independent fragment of a broader conversation about the nature of chaos and about how artists, exploring its forms, seek to locate the boundaries between destruction and creation, between order and freedom.
› CURATORS:
Alexandra Kuznetsova
Head of the Contemporary Art track and Academic Director of the Design program at the HSE Art and Design School; artist and curator. A regular participant in exhibitions held in Russia and beyond and contemporary art biennales, including group and solo shows at the Tretyakov Gallery, MMOMA, Manege, the Ekaterina Cultural Foundation, and the Kampala Art Biennale. Prize winner at the Moscow Extra Short Film Festival and the 1 Minuto Festival in Brazil.
Masha Dantsis
Curator of the Video Art track at the HSE Art and Design School; interdisciplinary artist. Recipient of the Kassel Art Academy Prize and the Garage Digital program award. Her solo exhibitions have taken place at the European Central Bank Gallery in Valladolid and Masters Digital Gallery in Saint Petersburg. Her works are held in the collections of the Jewish Museum in Berlin and the Garage Museum in Moscow.
Vassa Pyrkova
Director of HSE ART GALLERY and HSE ArtTech LAB at the HSE Art and Design School; exhibition producer and curator, art consultant; graduate of the Contemporary Art BA program at the HSE Art and Design School.
› ORGANIZERS
HSE ART GALLERY is a contemporary art gallery based at the HSE Art and Design School. Its primary focus is supporting students and alumni at the early stages of their careers, while also collaborating with external artists and curators. As a multidisciplinary institution, it combines the functions of an exhibition venue, creative agency, digital solutions platform, and art market. The gallery organizes its exhibitions at two locations: large-scale group shows take place at the Winzavod Center for Contemporary Art, while smaller projects are presented at the gallery in Malaya Pionerskaya Street.
HSE Art and Design School is a division of one of Russia's leading universities, the Higher School of Economics, ranked among the world's top 100 young universities and among the world's top 150 institutions teaching Art & Design according to the 2024 QS World University Rankings. The school offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral programs, continuing education, and children's courses across more than 15 educational fields.
ART VYSHKA is an ecosystem of contemporary art and cultural projects based at the HSE Art and Design School. It brings together educational programs, exhibitions, publishing and research projects, digital platforms, and a professional community. It is a space for those who create, study, and promote contemporary art, from students and emerging artists to established curators and collectors.
Ekaterina Cultural Foundation is a cultural institution founded by Ekaterina and Vladimir Semenikhin in 2002. The Foundation organizes large-scale contemporary art projects, including exhibitions, publishing initiatives, collection building, and educational programs. It frequently collaborates with leading museums, foundations, and art centers in Russia and worldwide, fostering dialogue between Russian and international art.
› GENERAL PARTNERS
artz.work is a social network where visual content gains value. Here, artists, illustrators, photographers, and designers share their works, while visitors collect them into digital collections. Selected works can be compiled into calendars or printed as posters. The project is realized in partnership with the HSE Art and Design School.
art.mediiia is a platform where art meets viewers through contemporary artists' portfolios, academic texts on art, and critical reviews. Here, artists participate in competitions, take educational courses, and enter the art market through a marketplace ecosystem. The project is realized in partnership with the HSE Art and Design School.
