The European Biennial of Contemporary Art

28 June 31 October 2014

St. Petersburg, Russia The State Hermitage Museum

Pavel Braila

Pavel Braila

Pavel Braila Railway Catering ‘Prietenia’, 2014 
Arrival of the train Prietenia (Friendship) from Chişinău to Vitebsk station. 
Photo: Rustam Zagidoullin

Born 1971 in Chişinău, Moldova
Lives and works in Berlin and Chişnău

Clocks in the nineteenth century were traditionally set with the help of the daily cannon shot at the Petropavlovsk Fortress. For Another Noon, his work for Manifesta, Braila is negotiating an additional shot with the city authorities, at 12 p.m. Eastern European time. St. Petersburg is one of the places where the socio-economic dimensions of the “politics of the clock” are especially palpable. Since 2011, Russia has been calibrated permanently to Daylight Saving Time, which creates a two-hour difference to neighboring Finland and Estonia in the winter. Another Noon can be observed by the public from the balconies on the opposite side of the Neva River.

In Railway Catering, Braila asked his family to send food and wine for an event in the Vitebsk Station. The provisins will arrive by the daily train Prietenia (Friendship) from Chişinău via Ukraine.

Cold Painting involves a midsummer action painting outside the Winter Palace with snowballs made from preserved snow that was gathered at Sochi.

Pavel Braila received international recognition with his 2002 film Shoes for Europe, presented at Documenta 11. Projects he has realized since include “AlteArte,” a TV program on contemporary art aired on the national channel Moldova1; Barons’ Hill, a six-channel video work (2005) showcasing new Sinti and Roma architecture in Moldova; and more recently, Definitely Unfinished (2010), an award-winning film shown at the Oberhausen International Film Festival. Solo exhibitions of his work have been shown at Roda Stern Gothenborg, Sweden (2012); KulturKontakt Austria, Vienna (2011); Ycvon Lambert, Paris (2008); Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (2007); and MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA, USA (2005).

Another Noon, 2014
Naryshkin Bastion
and the balcony opposite
June 28
12:30 p.m.–1:30 p.m.

Railway Catering “Prietenia”, 2014
Vitebsk Station
Zagorodny av. 52
July 19

Cold Painting, 2014
July 20
Palace Square