Denis Maksimov FRSA is a historian and artist-curator. His research is focused on politics and aesthetics of queer power and spans across classical antiquity and ancient Greek mythology, Russian and European history, cosmopolitanism and diplomacy, post-conceptual contemporary art and fashion, continental philosophy and critical theory, epic literature and science fiction.
Denis is a co-founder of the artistic think tank Avenir Institute, associate curator at Temnikova & Kasela, a co-convenor of the research seminars PPV: Politics and Aesthetics in the Global East (University College London) and Queer, Weird, Other (University of Edinburgh) and is a fellow of the London’s Royal Society of Arts. His work was presented in the Victoria & Albert Museum, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek Museum, in the context of the Venice Biennales of art and architecture, São Paulo Biennale, Off Biennale Cairo, Marres House for Contemporary Culture, among other places. He was the “Futures of Democracy?” visiting lecturer at University of Applied Arts Vienna in 2019 and gave talks at the Universities of Cologne and Namur; KU Leuven, University of St Andrews, The New School, Jan van Eyck Academie, among others. He was the curator in residence at U-jazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art in Warsaw, Projeto Fidalga in Sao Paulo, Critical Mass in St Petersburg, Fire Station in Dublin. He was an associate curator at Harlan Levey Projects in Brussels, where he was the founding curator of Penthouse Art Residency, and a founding curator of Elephant & Castle Experimental Space in London. His art writing was published in books and magazines including Doppiozero International, Ocula, Obieg, Moscow Art Magazine, Arts of the Working Class, Depesha, and others, in print and online; he writes a regular column Poliaesthetica for The Brussels Times Magazine and is a member of editorial team of kyklàda.press. Denis is a member of the pan-European political movement Volt Europa. He has been consulting politicians, business groups, not-for-profit organisations, and think tanks such as The EU-Russia Centre, The Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), The European Geopolitical Forum, and The Eurasia Competitiveness Institute in Brussels; The Development Alternatives (DAI) in Washington; The Institute for Contemporary Development in Moscow. He was the director for European Institutions of AEGEE Europe in Brussels in 2009-2010. His political analysis and opinions were published by Euractiv, Insurance Business, Radio Free Europe, Law and Politics, think tanks’ bulletins and other periodicals, as well as in several book chapters. His first book, The Problems in Communication between Government and Business in Contemporary Russia, was published in 2009 by the URSS in Moscow.
Denis grew up in a working-class family in the provincial Russian town of Bryansk. He was awarded a medal of excellence upon completion of high school and is a laureate of the 2004 Russian national intellectual contest in History. He was invited to enrol in any university in Russia without entrance exams on full state stipend. He received BA in Political Science and MA in European Studies (both summa cum laude) from the HSE University in Moscow, PGDip in International Security from Stanford University, DipHE in Drawing from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, Advanced MRes of Art & Design (cum laude) from the KdG University of Applied Sciences and Arts. He is a PhD candidate in Classics at the University of Edinburgh.