Taus Makhacheva

Taus Makhacheva was born in Moscow in 1983. From 2002 to 2003 she studied at London College of Communication, University of the Arts London. In 2007, she completed a BA program in Contemporary Art at Goldsmiths, University of London. In 2006, she graduated in World Economics from the Russian State University for the Humanities. From 2008 to 2009, she studied New Artistic Strategies at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Moscow. In 2013 she received a Master's degree in Contemporary Art from Royal College of Art in London.

In 2011, Taus Makhacheva's The Fast and the Furious was included in the main project of the 4th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art curated by Peter Weibel.

In the same year, she made it to the short list for Kandinsky Prize (category: Media Art Project of the Year). She was awarded Innovation Contemporary Art Prize (category: New Generation) in 2012. The same year, she took part in the Liverpool Biennial. In 2013, her work was exhibited at the Sharjah Biennial and in the special program of the Venice Biennale. In 2014, she was on the short-list for Innovation Prize (Best Regional Project of the Year with the exhibition Story Demands to be Continued) and won the Future of Europe prize at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Leipzig.

Her works are in the collections of Tate Modern (London), MuHKA (Antwerp), Moscow Museum of Modern Art, National Centre for Contemporary Arts (Moscow), Sharjah Art Foundation (Sharjah), P.S. Gamzatova Dagestan Museum of Fine Art; Gazprombank Collection, Vehbi Koç Foundation (Istanbul), Yarat Foundation (Baku), Kadist Art Foundation (Paris, San Francisco); the collections of Uppsala Konstmuseum and Videosight Foundation (Turin), as well as many private collections in Russia and abroad.

• 2015 – Vababai Vadadai! Narrative projects, London
• 2015 – (In)sidenotes, curated by Rebecka Wigh Abrahamsson, Uppsala Konstmuseum, Uppsala
• 2014 – Dagestan. Not for sale, curated by Alexey Maslyaev, artSumer, Istanbul
• 2014 – A Walk, A Dance, A Ritual, curated by Ilina Koralova, Museum of Contemporary Art, Leipzig
• 2013 – What? Whose? Why? curated by Daria Kirsanova, Raf Projects, Tehran
• 2013 – Story Demands to be Continued, curated by Alexey Maslyaev, Republic of Dagestan Union of Artists, Makhachkala, Russia
• 2013 – On historical ideals of labour in the country that conquered space, The Mews Project, London
• 2013 – The Process or Instance of Breaking Open, curated by Emmeli Person, Maria Kotlyachkova, Kalmar Konstmuseum, Kalmar, Sweden
• 2012 – Let Me Be Part of A Narrative, curated by Alexey Maslyaev, Paperworks Gallery, Winzavod, Moscow
• 2012 – Topography of Masculinity, curated by Irina Stark, Kelly Klifa, LJMU Copperas Hill Building, 7th Liverpool Biennial
• 2011 – Affirmative Action (mimesis), curated by Marco Scotini, Laura Bulian Gallery, Milan
• 2010 – Affirmative Actions, curated by Alexey Maslyaev, Panopticon Inutero, Moscow
• 2009 – A Space of Celebration, Pervaya Gallery, Makhachkala, Dagestan

• 2015 – Too Early, Too Late. Middle East and Modernity, curated by Marco Scotini, Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna, Arte Fiera, Bologna
• 2014 – Russian Performance: a Cartography of its History, curated by Yulia Aksenova and Sasha Obukhova, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow
• 2014 – Untitled... (Native Foreigners), curated by Andrey Misiano, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow
• 2014 – Parajanov. An Exhibition in the Colour of Pomegranate, Solyanka Gallery, Moscow
• 2014 – Close and Far: Russian Photography Now, curated by Kate Bush, Calvert 22, London
• 2014 – Marker 2014, Art Dubai
• 2014 – An Opera of Labour and Revolution, curated by Lanfranco Aceti and Susanne Jaschko, Kasa Gallery, Istanbul
• 2014 – So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, Lawrie Shabibi, Dubai
• 2013 – Spaces of Exception, curated by Elena Sorokina and Jelle Bouwhuis, 5 th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, special project, ARTPLAY Design Center, Moscow
• 2013 – Nostalgia Nervosa, curated by Iliana Fokianaki, State of Concept, Athens
• 2013 – Love me, Love me not, curated by Dina Nasser-Khadivi, 55th Venice Biennial, Venice
• 2013 – Sensible Action, curated by Beral Madra, Alanika 2013, National Museum of Republic Northern Ossetia-Alania, Vladikavkaz
• 2013 – No Water Tomorrow, curated by Alexey Maslyaev, Moscow Museum of Modern Art
• 2013 – The Enchanted Wanderer, curated by Andrey Misiano, Chukotka's Heritage Museum Center, Anadyr, Russia
• 2013 – Re: emerge-Towards a New Cultural Cartography, curated by Yuko Hasegawa, 11th Sharjah Biennial, Sharjah, UAE
• 2013 — Looks Like Torture, curated by Nicholas Cohn and Amy Kisch, HERE Art Center, New York
• 2013 — Take a Look at Yourself, Who Do You Think You Are?, curated by Andrey Parshikov, Victoria Gallery, Samara, Russia
• 2012 — I am who I am, curated by Olga Sviblova, Kunst im Tunnel, Dusseldorf, Germany
• 2012 – Animal Style, curated by Ilya Shipilovskikh, National Centre for Contemporary Arts, Ekaterinburg, Russia
• 2012 – Quarantania, curated by David Thorp, John Hansard Gallery, Southampton, UK
• 2012 – Joyful Archipelago, curated by Olga Grotova, Guest Projects, London
• 2012 – Happiness is a Warm Gun, Curated by Ekaterina Shadkovska, Rizzordi Art Foundation, Lof Raf, Saint Petersburg
• 2012 – Migrasophia, curated by Sara Raza, Maraya Contemporary Art Centre, Sharjah, UAE
• 2012 —Now&Then, Viktoria Gallery, Samara
• 2012 – Génération P, town hall at Le Kremlin-Bicêtre (near Paris)
• 2011 – Rewriting Worlds, curated by Peter Weibel, 4 Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, main project, ARTPLAY Design Center, Moscow
• 2011 – Expanded Cinema, Curated by Olga Shishko, XII Media Forum of 33rd Moscow International Film Festival, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow, Russia
• 2011 – Get Up and Run Away With It – About Love and the Impossible, curated by Nadine Wietlisbach, Palais Bleu Le-Lie, Trogen, Switzerland
• 2011 – Greater Caucasus, curated by Irina Yashkova, PERMM Museum of Contemporary Art, Perm, Russia
• 2010 – Intimate Capital, curated by Andrey Parshikov, II Moscow International Biennale for Young Art Qui Vive? Proekt Fabrika, Moscow, Russia
• 2010 —History of Russian Video Art, Volume 3, Curated by Antonio Geusa, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow, Russia
• 2009 – Let me think!, curated by Stanislav Shuripa, Parallel Program, 3 Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, Red October Factory, Moscow, Russia
• 2009 – Aluminium, curated by Leyla Akhundzadeh, IV International Baku Biennale of Contemporary Art
• 2009 – Topography of Happiness: Russian Wedding from the 19th to the 21st Centuries, Curated by Olga Sosnina, Tsaritsino State Museum, Moscow, Russia
• 2009 —We will take the lead from now on, curated by Arseniy Zhilyaev and Maria Chekhonadskih , Voronezh Center for Contemporary Art, Voronezh, Russia
• 2008 — Me, nature, curated by Stanislav Shuripa, I Moscow International Biennale for Young Art Qui Vive?, Foundation Contemporary City, Moscow, Russia
• 2008 — Migration, curated by Daria Kamyshnikova, I Moscow International Biennale for Young Art Qui Vive?, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow Russia
• 2008 – Documenting Possibilities, curated by Stanislav Shuripa, Valand School of Fine Arts, Gothenburg, Sweden
• 2006 – Caucasica, curated by Giancarlo Vianello, Scuola Grande di S.Giovanni Evangelista, Venice, Italy
• 2006 – XII INTERBIFER International Biennale of Portrait, Drawings and Graphics 06, Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina

From 2011 to 2014 Taus Makhacheva gave lectures in Pervaya Gallery (Makhachkala—Kaspiysk), at the art department of Dagestan State Pedagogic University (Makhachkala), in M.A. Dzhemal Dagestan Art School (Makhachkala), and ran workshops in South London Art Gallery.

In 2010, she taught the special course History of Performance at the art history department of Moscow State University.

• Bailey, Stephanie. Her Dagestan. ArtAsiaPacific. No.87, 2014 London
• Laia, Joao. Taus Makhacheva. Frieze magazine No.160, 2014 London
• Pertenava, Lali. Taus Makhacheva. ArtForum, February 2014 USA
• Avdeev, Maxim. A Day with Taus Makhacheva. Art Chronika No 4, 2012
• Amirsadeghi, Hossein; Vickery, Joanna ed. Frozen Dreams: Contemporary Art from Russia, Thames and Hudson
• Gamzatova, Patimat. Karakul by Taus Makhacheva. ANTENNAE No.4, 2007
• Goloveshkina, Julia. Actions as Art. Novoe Delo No.49 (985), 2010
• Guskov, Sergey. To act differently. Not longing to discover the origins, but longing to discover something new. www.colta.ru, October 16, 2013
• Parshikov, Andrey. Interview: Taus Makhacheva. Andy Warhol’s Interview, Russia, No,12, 2012
• Scotini, Marco. Strategies of Camouflage. Taus Makhacheva’s actions. ArteCritica No.67, 2011
• Tolstova, Anna. Continuation of heart and hand. Taus Makhacheva in Makhachkala. Kommersant No.187(5218), 2013
• Khachaturov, Sergey. Quality of weaving. www.arterritory.com, October 14, 2013
• Chekhonadskikh, Maria. Shots into the Sand by Taus Makhacheva. Moscow Art Magazine No.81, 2010