At the beginning of March, within the framework of the Moscow Details project, six journalists from six cities arrived. City experts became conductors for our guests and showed them non-obvious Moscow, which you will not see in tourist guides. We publish their reports on the website "Moskvich Mag". The first to share the impressions of the journalist from St. Petersburg Stanislav Smirnov.
When I, the resident of the cultural capital of Russia, was offered to see the artistic life of Moscow, I treated this proposal with a peculiar snobism. Pushkin Museum, Tretyakovka, Museum "Garage", Mamm, Well, "Winzavod" at a thin end - where from these places I have not yet been and what else can I see there yet?! What can I offer in the city where there is no Hermitage and the Russian Museum?!
I confess, coming to Moscow regularly, I lived a stereotype about the city-car, where art is nothing more than another form of leisure for ever-working Muscovites and tired guests of the capital who want to put a tick in the list "Was seen." Let me be frank - I never knew especially what was happening behind the walls of art galleries and how work was born in workshops. Therefore, the offer from Moskvich Mag to spend several days with curators and see the city with an unusual perspective for me, their eyes and through their own prism of the perception of the city's relatives for them turned out to be very tempting. I could not resist such a temptation. Suddenly they really surprise?! Two days, two different people - one Moscow.
Between Petersburg and Moscow, just an hour of flight with a comfortable green airline airline S7. Another 40 minutes, and I approach a small mansion in the heart of Zamoskvorechye, where the design hotel "Richter" is located. He is also about culture. Only seven rooms and its own gallery of contemporary art, and more recently also creative residences, where you can rehearse, create new collections, meet friends, go into live ethers with experimental formats and organize departments.
First day with Nikolai Palazhchenko
Nikolai Palazhchenko became the curator of the first day, in the past Art director of "Vinreevoda", now the curator of the Art-Management and Gallery Business School of Business School RMA. Nikolai is a nickname Spider, and it is very suitable for him - he is fast and turning, which was reflected in our program: seven places in one day. Immediately run ahead and say that we had time everywhere. Nikolai Palazhchenko, Founder of the Lazy Mike Gallery Mikhail Ovcharenko, Stanislav Smirnov (St. Petersburg) and Anastasia Markova (Nizhny Novgorod)We started from the Anna Golubanka Museum, which is now conserved and is waiting for the beginning of a large-scale reconstruction, and while the laboratory of director Alexander Shane is located in its space. Here he explores meanings and era - this is an attempt to actualize the past and building connections inside the diversity of the randoms around us. He surprisingly enveloped the works of N. Goncharova, M. Larionova, E. Mitty, M. Romadina, F. Lesya, K. Malevich, V. Mamysheva-Monroe, songs of V. Tsoi and projects of Timur Novikov. And it was the most Nemoskovsky project, sharply stand out by his philosophy and approach against the background of all other locations. This laboratory is the Petersburg artifact, some unknown way temporarily found out in the historical center of Moscow.
Before the next gallery, we walk on foot. Sun shines, spring came to Moscow, and Nikolai Palazhchenko tells about the saturated fiction life of the capital and about Art Basel, whose representative in Russia he is. Alina Pinsky Gallery is located in Isakov's house on Prechistenka, one of the bright monuments of Moscow modern. Once there were lived here, and today in spacious light interiors show contemporary art. This kind of space could be anywhere - in Beirut, Lisbon or Paris. The posterior atmosphere, the cabinet of Alina Pinskaya, and on the walls of Francisco Infanta and Nonna Goryunova "Artifacts" on the walls of Francisco. Fifty photographs from the series "By Night", created by artists during a pandemic. The authors think about the philosophical theme of the Night Transition to the Light Day - after all, it is then that, in their opinion, Eternity comes. The gallery in Alina is somehow sterile, and there is even more contrast to the previous place.
In Fragment Gallery, we meet her owner Sergey Guschin - he is young, dynamic and successful. A few years ago, he decided to radically change the sphere of activity and left the marketing in contemporary art. It turned out very well. Now the gallery has already started earning, opens up new names and show them all over the world, supports LGBT artists and brings interesting work in its small space in Potapovsky Lane. Now the joint exhibition at first glance is not similar to each other artists - British Patricia Aires and Americans Lisa Ivori "Stop Word / Safe Word". The exhibition is built on a dialogue between the works of two artists, which is united by interest in such topics as restrictions, mechanisms for protection and overcoming fears. It turned out nairino, but very attractive. And if you wrap in a small yarn at the end of the gallery or to the office, then there will be a work of pacifiko silane, Danini, Ilya Fedotov-Fedorov and other places very provocative artists.
Art in Moscow is in many ways about business. Works should be sold, artists - ride the exhibitions of contemporary art, and champagne - to pour the river on the venissions in countless galleries throughout Moscow. Now the fashion for contemporary art began. Everyone wants to collect something, have at home is not another poster from Yellowkorner, but something present and having a certain value, and even better so that it is an investment and the cost of work grew. I am also chasing my mercenary goals and looking for what to hang on the walls of the living room in his new apartment, which I literally bought a couple of months ago in the center of St. Petersburg. I go, I look after, trying to tryten.
In the gallery Lazy Mike I somehow liked it and I wanted to buy something. Now the works of Roman Manichina are exhibited. They are bright and emit exclusively joyful emotions, which in our time is not enough and which are so unusual to modern painting. In the paintings of the sea, the sun, seagulls and girls in the cabriolet make selfie. It turned out such a Russian pop art.
The topic of business and art connectivity is particularly brightly traced in the Cube.Moscow Art Center, located on -2-m floor of the Ritz-Carlton Moscow. Now here with a dozen galleries, the composition of which is changing periodically. Cube is a completely unique project not only for Moscow, but also for Russia - here art integrates into the space of the city hotel, allowing it to become part of the city public environment. We are accustomed to the fact that in the hotel you can live or go to the restaurant, but come to watch modern art ... there was no such thing. Cube is the first. Now, when the area of hospitality actively revises points of growth and sphere where you can earn business and than to attract guests, such a kind of ideas are relevant more than ever. And art in Cube is relevant. As, for example, the project of the artist Andrei Syyleva "Shop Collector" in PA Gallery. Art objects appear as goods under a single trademark recognized network of hypermarkets. And they can actually buy them - everything is truly.
From the product to its production. Nikolai Palazhchenko included two art workshops in the first day program. The first were the workshop Fund Vladimir Smirnov and Konstantin Sorokina, located in an industrial building in the very center of Moscow. We fell here literally on the opening of the exhibition of the Ural artists "Garden of unearthly consolations". They just ended to bring the last strokes, and the curator of the project Alice Sychev fascinately told us about their first exhibition project. She believes that her homeland is the Urals is now relevant from the point of view of modern art. In the center of one of the rooms - the work of Lyudmila Kalinichenko about awareness, about the fact that sometime humanity will cease to kill animals, and meat will begin to grow massively in test tubes. The work of Luda is volumetric, with kinetic elements and video art - as a big Mexican altar. It can be considered for a long time and look for different meanings.
Moscow Today is a large melting boiler and a cultural center of a huge country, where artists from all over Russia come. It is easier to realize your ambitions and make you notice and appreciated. In this regard, the city is open to talents.
But talents need support, and it is for these purposes that for several years already have a "garage" workshops. Not far from the center, in the depths of the VDNH, where we arrive in the evening. The pavilion "Cosmos" is glowing away, and 18 workshops of artists are located in a two-story post-competition building. Here they live and work - it turned out a peculiar commune. The main place in the workshops is a kitchen, and here it is already being prepared for our arrival, but for now we go on a tour with a curator of the project Ivan Isaev. A small library and a hall for watching movies, a room for yoga and meditation and the holy of saints - actually workshops. We are invited to several of them. In one young artist Lera Lerner shows us her job - a dress with rubber clarops: "This is a special dress for hugs. When you press up, the claritions begin to squeeze. " In another room - a married couple of artists from Minsk Dina Beetle and Nikolai Svetivtsev from the Eeefff grouping, their work will be seen in the Garage at the exhibition "Speculation, Fakes, Forecasts", where the guys will be as part of the Working Group of the Mediaactivist Association "Cafe-ice-cream " They make video art in which the cats teach to overcome obstacles in the form of drawn doors at home on Lubyanka. It seems to be a dialogue with Peter Pavlensky. And then we sit down to dinner, and it turns out that the interest among artists to guests is not less than we have to them.
Second day with zarina Thai
"And I will go to a beautiful coat on the embankment and meeting you." (C) Zemfira.
This is right about us with a curator of the second day Zarina Thai. Zarina is a miniature girl with subtle features of the face and a living mind. We met in Zamoskvorechye and go on solar Moscow to the exhibition Zhang Huan "Love as wisdom" in Gum. The sun shines, I pry in glasses, and Zarina tells me about the creative and physical suffering of the Chinese artist, whose new works I will see in a few minutes. She translated it from Chinese, so perfectly understands the subject of his creativity and context. Zarina generally knows well and understands China, where she lived all childhood with their parents.
Stanislav Smirnov and Zarina ThaiGallery GUM-RED-LINE settled on the last floor of the department store. On the way, we pass by the showcases with famous names and abundance of bright goods: Louis Vuitton, Fendi, Prada ... and then sharp contrast. In the exhibition space, only two canvas - "Lyubov №2" and "Lyubov number 7". The whole setting is like a monastic celle - a place where the monk artist prays and meditates. And since art for Zhang Huan is a direct continuation of life, something directly related to everyday life, then the cell is in the heart of the capital, in the gallery overlooking the main square of Russia surrounded by the crowd and endless boutiques. Such is the ribbon of the Mebius.
And then we go to the workshop of the sculptor Sergey Shehovtsov. Before everyone to consider, drink brandy and eat the slices of lemon, and Sergey shows us on the mocks of the city sculpture - they are not yet in reality, but I really want them to appear somewhere in "Charity". It works in the genre of new Russian poor art, using beer banks, cement, foam and foam rubber as materials. Sergey arrived in Moscow 30 years ago from the Rostov region, and today Moscow has become its city for him. His works are in the Tretyakov Meeting, the Moscow Museum of Contemporary Art, the State Center for Contemporary Art and in numerous private collections. And on the table, the workshop is a new project - there will be a parfenon with columns from beer cans and new "gods".
Our last route runs past one of the markets, where we stop the snack. Zarina orders oysters and talks about his new project in the Heritage gallery, where she serves as a curator. Art of her fascinates passionately. She collects him, chasing him for especially close works on fairs and galleries, opens up new names. It is to such a new name - Zina Izoodova - we go. The Graduate of the Rodchenko School, who came from Kiev six years ago, works with images of everyday life, recreating them in pop art applications - rolls with toilet paper, sockets and sex toys. So everyday things gain exclusivity, ironically pulling away from reality. Zina from the family of famous Ukrainian artists and looked for themselves for a long time. In many ways, the "Garage" workshops helped her, where Zina participated as a resident in one of the early streams, and then exhibited on the triennial of modern Russian art in the "garage", and her work even got on the posters and the promotion of the exhibition. Zarina goes through the work of Zina, admires and postpones something for his exhibition and to buy himself into the collection. Zina Isupova only begins his creative path in Moscow, but it felt that the future is waiting for her interesting and bright.
In the evening, we sit in one of the bars on the patriarching ponds, and the participants of the Muscovite MAG project share the impressions of what they saw in two days. Someone had urbanism, someone had literature, someone - gastronomy. Impressions for all weight. Moscow is striking - scale, approach, openness, hospitality and willingness to change. She is fast, rapid and also rapidly changing. Practically in the eyes.
Photo: Peter Rakhmanov