Vernissage of Artists Against the Kremlin III: Memory Remains
Opening hours
13 August | 18.00 – 22.00 | Free entrance
Curated and concept by
Prometheus Amplifying Values
On 13 August 2026, De Balie welcomes Memory Remains, the third edition of the major critical art project Artists Against the Kremlin. Since 2024, the exhibition has brought together artists who oppose the Kremlin’s authoritarianism, war and political repression. This year, we focus on the theme of memory and the importance of preserving it.
In recent years, Russia has systematically dismantled institutions that preserve histories and memories challenging the official state narrative. Yet the erasure of memory is not a new tactic. It is as old as the Soviet Union itself: from the silenced massacre in Novocherkassk and the countless victims of Stalinist terror and forced displacement to rewritten histories, renamed cities, retouched photographs and names deliberately erased from public memory. When archives disappear, we risk losing history itself.
Artists Against the Kremlin III: Memory Remains is an artistic response to this reality. Bringing together artists living in exile, under persecution, or continuing to work despite repression, the exhibition preserves the memory of resistance and insists that it remains part of our shared history.
Our statement is simple: there is no position outside history. Silence is not absence—it is a stance. When injustice is rewritten and repression denied, remembering becomes an act of resistance.
Prometheus Amplifying Values
Join us on 13 August to be among the first visitors to experience the exhibition, meet the artists and curators, and take part in an evening of performances and conversations.
Programme Vernissage
Curatorial tours through the exhibition sections
Informal conversations with participating artists and curators
Past Perfect — a live durational piano performance by Maria Nemtsova
About Past Perfect
Created especially for Artists Against the Kremlin, Past Perfect is a live durational performance for piano.
Throughout the performance, the pianist remains continuously at the instrument. Time is no longer measured by movements, applause or intermissions, but by the gradual transformation of the performer’s body, attention and endurance.
The piano ceases to function as a concert instrument and becomes a site of persistence. The performer is no longer a soloist but a living presence within the exhibition.
Visitors are free to enter and leave at any moment. There is no privileged beginning, no definitive ending and no complete experience. Every encounter is fragmentary, shaped by the visitor’s own passage through space and time.
Past Perfect shifts music from the temporal architecture of the concert hall into the open, continuous time of the museum. Here, performance is not an event to be consumed but a state to be inhabited.
Created in the context of Artists Against the Kremlin, the work reflects on what survives political violence: the body that continues, memory that refuses erasure and history that remains unresolved. Endurance becomes both an artistic method and an ethical gesture.
The title Past Perfect refers to the grammatical tense describing what has already been completed. Yet the work proposes precisely the opposite: some pasts never truly end. They continue to resonate in the present, demanding attention, presence and remembrance.
I still wake up on a foggy morning, Anonymous
Five thematic sections during Memory Remains
Erasing Memory
Centred around the exhibition The Other Russia. MEMORIAL: 35 Years of Struggle for Historical Truth and Democracy, this section presents the work of one of Russia’s oldest human rights organisations dedicated to preserving the memory of political repression. It showcases decades of archival research documenting state violence and resistance.
Archive
This section examines the history and contemporary use of punitive psychiatry in Russia—from its role as an instrument of political repression during the Soviet period to its continued use against political opponents today.
Tribute
Slection of artworks exploring active memory through portraits of dissidents, monuments to resistance, works commemorating events the Kremlin seeks to erase, and reflections on memory itself. Featured artists include Pussy Riot, Yuliy Rybakov, Slava Ptrk, Linor Goralik, Masha Trebukova, Artem Loskutov, Pavel Krisevich, Sasha Skochilenko, Aya Demina, Milada Kopeliovich, Vladlena Sandu, Ivan Dubyaga, Anita Turadzhanova, Nika Nikulshina and many others.
Feminist Anti-War Resistance
Dedicated to women political prisoners in Russia, this section presents their stories of resistance, imprisonment and resilience through contemporary artistic responses.
Hard Times Café
A homage to the iconic Hard Rock Cafe, this installation transforms De Balie’s café into a space displaying artefacts donated by musicians who oppose the Kremlin. Borrowing the familiar visual language of the Hard Rock Cafe, the installation invites visitors to reflect on the lives, sacrifices and resistance embodied by these objects.
Expositie
Artists Against the Kremlin III: Memory Remains
This summer, Artists Against the Kremlin returns for the third time to De Balie. An ongoing art project by Prometheus Art, The Moscow Times, and De Balie. The exhibition brings together contemporary Russian-speaking artists from across the world whose practices confront the Russian invasion of Ukraine, repression, and censorship. Over the past two years, Artists
In recent years, Russia has systematically dismantled institutions that preserve histories and memories challenging the official state narrative. This evening brings together scholars of memory, human rights advocates and artists to explore the mechanisms behind both erasure and remembrance. How can the past be preserved when a regime seeks to suppress it? Why does collective
