Andrey Shental is a Berlin-based critic, curator, and artist. He studied Literary and Art Criticism at Moscow State University’s Faculty of Journalism and holds a Master’s degree from the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy (CRMEP) at Kingston University, London. Currently, he is pursuing a PhD in aesthetics and philosophy of nature at Goethe University in Frankfurt.
From 2016 to 2019, Shental co-curated the Philosophy Club at Moscow’s Winzavod Center for Contemporary Art, where he designed educational programmes. His curatorial work includes The Return, a solo exhibition of Arseny Zhilyaev (Winzavod CCA, 2017); Salon of Rejected Categories, an education programme at the 7th Moscow International Biennale for Young Art (2020); and Turbulence, a programme co-curated for the 8th Cosmoscow International Fair (2020).
As a writer, Shental has contributed reviews, interviews, and essays to numerous publications, including Artforum, Spike, Camera Austria, Frieze, Idea, Little Joe, Mute, Springerin, and Kunstlicht. He served as contemporary art editor for Theory & Practice (2013–2016), editor at Moscow Art Magazine (2016–2017), and foreign correspondent for Flash Art International (2015–2018).
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS AND FESTIVALS:
May 2025 | CosmiX Festival IV, Saint-André des Arts, Paris
Feb 2025 | Pose – QueerFest Exhibition, Undercroft Gallery, Norwich
Nov – Dec 2024 | Venus Conversations, Science Museum, London
Jul 2024 | Sub Drop (solo show), Kunsthaus KuLe, Berlin
Mar – Apr 2024 | Mosaikörper: Between Body and Identity, Kunstquartier Bethanien, Berlin
Nov 2023 – Jan 2024 | Descent into the Fungal, Buro Stedelijk, Amsterdam
Sep – Oct 2023 | Comm-Sui, Kunsthaus KuLe, Berlin
Jul – Sep 2023 | Niche Construction, NoD Gallery, Prague
Mar – Aug 2021 | Assuming Distance: Speculations, Fakes, and Predictions in the Age of the Coronacene, Garage Museum, Moscow
May – Jun 2021 | At the Stroke of Midnight, Szena Gallery, Moscow
Nov 2017 – Mar 2018 | The Electric Comma, V–A–C Zattere, Venice
Nov – Dec 2017 | The First Person, SkateCafe, Amsterdam
Apr – Jun 2017 | Hosting the Inhuman, MMoMA, Moscow
Jul – Aug 2012 | Inconclusive Analysis, 3rd Moscow Biennale for Young Art, NCCA, Moscow
RESIDENCIES, GRANTS AND PRIZES:
Jan 2019 | Residency at New Alphabet School, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin
Nov 2017 | Residency with Critics’ Agenda: VIENNA 2017, BLOCKFREI, Vienna
Autumn 2017 | Five-month grant from Centre for Experimental Museology, Moscow, for research on militarisation in museum contexts
2017 | Innovation Prize nomination for Aesthetics and Its Discontents project
Jul 2013 | Second Moscow Curatorial Summer School, Presnya Historical Memorial Museum
Jun 2013 | Residency programme “Redirecting: East” at Zamek Ujazdowski, Warsaw
Summer 2012 | Summer Film School, no.w.here, London
2012–2013 | Curatorial courses at Lux Archive and LUX / ICA Biennial of Moving Images, London