Taus Makhacheva

Super Taus, 2014

Viral video, 2 minutes and 16 seconds

Super Taus is Taus Makhacheva’s superhero alter-ego and appeared after the artist met Super Sohrab, a superhero from Iran. Super Taus lives and works in the Tsada Mountain village in Dagestan, and uses her superhuman strength in acts of everyday heroism, like the action captured in this viral video footage. Super Taus considers her actions as “life affirming practices”, and as Makhacheva describes “she is like a child’s fantasy, a dream of a woman who grew up and lives in a patriarchal society.”

Taus Makhacheva lives and works in Moscow. She is known predominantly for performance and video works that critically examine what happens when different cultures and traditions come into contact with one another. Often humorous, her works attempt to test the resilience of images, objects and bodies in today’s world. Makhacheva’s work always originates from a story told or an experience shared and expands out into wider collections of narratives and disciplines.

Taus has a BA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths (2007), graduated from the Institute of Contemporary Art, Moscow (New Strategies program, 2009), holds MFA from Royal College of Art (2013). Makhacheva is awarded “New Generation – Innovation” State Prize (Moscow, 2012), “Future of Europe” Prize, Museum of Contemporary Art (Leipzig, 2014), 6th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art Foundation Prize (Moscow, 2015), Kandinsky Prize (as Super Taus, Moscow, 2016) and named “Cosmoscow Artist of the Year”, Cosmoscow Foundation for Contemporary Art (Moscow, 2018).

Selected exhibitions include Moscow Biennial (2011), Sharjah Biennial (2013), Kyiv Biennial (2015), Shanghai Biennial (2016), Garage Triennial of Russian Contemporary Art (2017), Venice Biennial (2017), Yinchuan Biennial (2018), Manifesta 12 in Palermo (2018), Liverpool Biennial (2018), Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art (2018), Lyon Biennial (2019), Kaunas Biennial (2019), Lahore Biennial (2020), Yokohama Triennial (2020). Selected collections include Art Gallery of Ontario (Ontario), Dagestan Museum of Fine Arts named after P. S. Gamzatova (Makhachkala), Centre Pompidou (Paris), Gazprombank (Moscow), GfZK – Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst (Leipzig), KADIST Art Foundation (Paris, San Francisco), Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles), Louis Vuitton Foundation (Paris), Moscow Museum of Modern Art (Moscow), Museum of Modern Art (Antwerp), National Centre for Contemporary Arts (Moscow), Pushkin Museum (Moscow), Sharjah Art Foundation (Sharjah), Tate Modern (London), Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow), Uppsala Konstmuseum (Uppsala), Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven), Vehbi Koç Foundation (Istanbul), Videoinsight Foundation (Turin), Yarat Foundation (Baku).