Created by artist Sasha Chavchavadze (bio below), the Museum of Matches is an ongoing project that has been presented in a number of interdisciplinary forms: in exhibitions; as readings/slide show presentations; as publications in art and culture magazines; as a 12-minute DVD; as a one-room Cold War museum; as an online Cold War Archive; as a book published by Proteotypes in 2011; and as a collaborative installation entitled The Berlin Tunnel Project. In 2013, Chavchavadze’s work was chosen as a finalist in the Committee for Tacit History’s international Cold War Victory Monument competition.
Exhibitions
Proteus Gowanus, “The Berlin Tunnel Project,” a collaborative installation by three artists responding to a declassified CIA document. Collaborating artists: Tatiana Istomina and Barbara Westermann.
The Rotunda Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, 2007. “The Match Game,” an installation of Cold War archival material.
Kentler International Drawing Space, Brooklyn, NY. 2005. A one-person show of “Matchwork,” mixed-media assemblages and drawings incorporating wooden matches.
Publications
Cabinet Magazine, Issue 18 (Fictional States): “The Match Game”
An artist project including narrative text, emails, Cold War photographs and documentation of a match game installation.
Bomb Magazine, Fall 2006: “Matchwork.” An excerpt including narrative text and reproductions of assemblages/drawings made with wooden matches.
NYFA Currents: “Game, Set, Match” February 2007 . An essay with narrative text, Cold War photographs, reproductions of assemblages/installations made with wooden matches commissioned by the New York Foundation for the Arts online magazine.
The Play Book: “Nabokov’s Match Game (or a better trick),” Published by Proteotypes in Fall 2007 . A match game comprised of drawings with narrative text based on a game described by Vladimir Nabokov in his memoir, Speak, Memory.
Museum of Matches, a book published by Proteotypes in 2011.
DVD
“The Match Game” a 12-minute video completed in 2007 in conjunction with a Rotunda Gallery/BCAT Multi-Media Residency in non-linear editing. A 2-minute excerpt follows:
Readings/ Presentations
Center for Art and Architecture, Manifesto Series, 2014
Proteus Gowanus, Museum of Matches book launch, 2011
Wellfleet Public Library, Reading/slide presentation, Museum of Matches book, 2011
Coney Island Museum, Reading/slide presentation, Museum of Matches, 2011
Kentler International Drawing Space, “Matchwork,” 2005
Wellfleet Library, Wellfleet, MA. “Nabokov’s Matches,” 2005
DNA Gallery, Provincetown, MA. “Nabokov’s Matches,” 2004
Press
VOA News, August 2001
How Russian and the U.S. Have Changed Since the End of the Cold War, Wall Street Journal, Speakeasy, Arts and Entertainment, December 2011
Cold War Memories, Burning Bright, The New York Times City Section/Urban Studies, September 17, 2006
Brooklyn Arts Council Newsletter, Spring 2007, Featured Artist
Birch – Columbia University online journal, 2007
Novoye Russkoye Slova, artist profile, 2007
Russian ITV, artist profile, 2006
Artist Bio
Sasha Chavchavadze has exhibited her work in galleries and museums for twenty years, including at the Luise Ross Gallery in New York and at the Arkansas Art Center in Little Rock. She has received awards and residencies, including at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and at the Rotunda/BCAT Multi-Media Residency Program in Brooklyn. She is the founder and creative director of Proteus Gowanus, an interdisciplinary gallery and reading room in Brooklyn. Chavchavadze teaches art in Brooklyn, NY.
Contact
museumofmatchesATgmailDOTcom
