Francesco Bonami’s GES-2 Appointment: What Changes

Francesco Bonami, a GES-2 board member and adviser since 2021, has been appointed artistic director to shape program content and project principles with the institution’s team. GES-2 says announcements for the next three-year period will begin at the end of 2026, providing the first test of its promises about collaboration and international exchange.

 
 

Bonami’s Appointment Changes Who Sets the Program

GES-2’s four-page appointment release is unusually precise about the change. Bonami has participated in institutional strategy since 2021, but as an adviser who consulted the team on artistic and programming matters. Artistic director is a new role for him and for the institution’s current leadership structure.

The release says Bonami will shape the artistic content of GES-2’s program directions and define principles for selecting and realizing projects alongside the team. That is more consequential than offering strategic advice: selection criteria determine which artists, media and ideas receive space, production support and public attention. At an institutional scale, those choices are the core work of curating art.

Bonami has acquired formal decision-making authority, but the announcement repeatedly describes work with curators and the GES-2 team rather than sole control. GES-2 told The Blueprint that program direction develops individual strands and relationships between projects, while artistic direction establishes the wider questions, approaches and tasks given to curators.

Alisa Prudnikova, program director of the V-A-C Foundation and GES-2 since 2022, will remain in that position through December 6, 2026. From 2027 she will continue as an independent project curator concentrating on academic studies and international residencies.

 

GES-2 House of Culture in Moscow in March 2026. Photograph by Юрий Д.К., via Wikimedia Commons, cropped. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.

 
 

A Familiar Curator, Not an Outside Reset

GES-2 opened on December 4, 2021, in a former power station renovated by Renzo Piano Building Workshop. Its founder, the V-A-C Foundation, describes the House of Culture as an interdisciplinary platform connecting exhibitions with performance, cinema, music and learning. That mix matters because Bonami’s remit extends beyond a conventional museum exhibition calendar.

His relationship with V-A-C predates the Moscow venue. With Irene Calderoni, he curated Modernikon: Contemporary Art From Russia in Turin and Venice in 2010–2011. V-A-C Press issued the Russian edition of his book I Can Do the Same! Why Contemporary Art Is Really Art in 2017, and he joined GES-2’s strategic work in 2021.

In 2024, Bonami and Zelfira Tregulova organized Square and Space: From Malevich to GES-2, which connected histories of Russian art with international modern and contemporary practices. His next GES-2 project, Things, Idols, Bananas, co-curated with Dmitry Belkin, is scheduled for December 2026.

Bonami also brings experience from institutions whose exhibitions operate on a much larger international circuit. La Biennale di Venezia’s historical record identifies him as director of its 50th International Art Exhibition in 2003, while the Whitney Museum credits him and Gary Carrion-Murayari as curators of the 2010 Whitney Biennial. He served as a senior curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago from 1999 to 2008.

That résumé explains why the appointment attracts attention beyond Russia, but it does not by itself guarantee renewed exchange. The appointment comes during Russia’s continuing war against Ukraine and a sharp contraction in museum cooperation between Russian and Western institutions. Those circumstances affect the practical movement of artworks, lenders, artists and curators even when an institution declares an international outlook.

The Art Newspaper reported that Bonami did not answer its request for comment. In a statement to the publication, GES-2 said its international outlook was independent of any individual appointment and raised the possibility of exhibitions involving practitioners from any country who are open to engagement. That is an institutional intention, not yet evidence of a confirmed loan, co-production or museum partnership.

Francesco Bonami speaking in Florence in 2015. Photograph by Vysotsky (Wikimedia), via Wikimedia Commons, cropped. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International.

 
 

Four Tests for the Three-Year GES-2 Plan

GES-2 says announcements identifying themes and projects for the next three-year period will begin at the end of 2026. The available details fall into four areas.

1. Named international participation. GES-2 has described international exchange as integral to its identity. The release does not identify artists, guest curators or institutional partners, with dates and defined roles. An individual artist accepting an invitation is meaningful, but it is not equivalent to a formal museum partnership.
2. Loans and co-productions. Bonami’s 2024 exhibition drew its argument from relationships among works, histories and spaces. The appointment announcement names no lenders, commissioning arrangements or co-producing institutions, although that omission from a preliminary release does not show that such agreements will be absent from the completed plan.
3. Residencies and production support. Bonami identifies the Vaults Centre for Artistic Production and the artist residency program as priorities. GES-2’s current open calls already include a grant program for artists, curators and researchers and a 2027 residency call. The release does not say whether the new plan will expand access, funding, production capacity or international professional exchange beyond that existing infrastructure.
4. Curatorial authority. The release establishes that Bonami will define selection principles with the team, but it does not specify a budget, reporting line, approval procedure or division of authority over individual projects. Those details remain unknown.

Interior of GES-2 House of Culture in Moscow in 2024. Photograph by MBH, via Wikimedia Commons, cropped. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International.

 
 

Advisory Work Has Become Formal Artistic Authority

The institutional record establishes that Bonami has advised GES-2 since 2021 and now has an explicit role in defining artistic content and project-selection principles. His appointment is a promotion within a five-year relationship with the House of Culture, not an outside takeover.

Prudnikova remains program director until December 6 and will continue in 2027 as an independent curator working on academic studies and international residencies. The official release says announcements for the next three-year program will begin at the end of 2026.

The appointment release names no new foreign museum partners, lenders, budgets or approval procedures for the forthcoming three-year program, although GES-2 has separately announced artists and exhibitions continuing into 2027.