A new column by Anna Kunovskaya, the editor-in-chief of the magazine for art collectors "Sammler".  

Once upon a time several months ago an art collection worth a considerable sum of money was stolen from a house of the director of a major museum. News agencies did not even have to specify what kind of art collection it was - that of Chinese artists, of course. The words "art" and "China" recently became inseparable in the press. Buying (if you are rich and successful) or being interested in (if you're still working on it) watercolours, drawings and paintings from China is as fashionable as ignoring TV, worrying about the environment or using Twitter.

Fang Lijun

The artist and architect Alexandr Brodsky won the main Kandinsky Prize of the 2010th in the nomination "The Project of the Year". Brodsky presented his project "The Way" which he called the mix of pacification and anxiety. The ceremony is hosted in Central House of Artist today.

The authors of the two projects shared the prize in the nomination "Young Artist of the Year": Taisia Korotkova for her "Reproduction" project about a futuristic maternity hospital and Recycle group and its exhibition "Reverse".

The show by Andrey Blazhnov and his video with the railroad tracks named "A Value" was called the best art media project.<... Read more »

The Art Forum magazine published the article named "A New Order" by Russian art historian Ekaterina Degot. It's a big and very important text about the present of contemporary Russian art.

In Moscow, ideological struggles take place over cocktails. At one such soiree, I was approached by Olga Sviblova, the grande dame of the Moscow art establishment, curator of the city’s Photobiennale and director of its ambitious new Multimedia Art Museum, which hosts the art school where I teach. It was obvious she was appalled. "I was told you’ve been teaching students dangerous ideas,” she whispered. "One says you teach them Marxism!”

"War" is a modern Moscow art group operating in the field of conceptual street art. The group is known for some scandalous performances. It's no less than sixty persons - poets, artists, linguists, journalists, students.They collaborate with a variety of artistic and political structures and they consider that their teachers in modern art are Alexander Brener, Andrey Monastery and Vadim Zakharov. One of the founders of Moscow Conceptualism Dmitry Prigov was close to early composition of the group.

The "War's" performances include provocation, violation of generally accepted standards of morality in public places, public disorderly conduct, obscene language, and sometimes even damage to property. Its first action was held on May 1, 2007. Then the activists threw cats in the McDonalds in Moscow. On March 2008 they carri... Read more »

Diana Machulina is one of the most recognizable Moscow artists of young generation. Born in the Ukraine in 1981, she has managed to get several art educations in Russia and Germany so she has become the really international artist. In 2008th Diana has been awarded with Kandinsky prize as the best young artist. I love her paintings, they seem to be far away from the classic hyperrealism.

Marx. Grave of Marx on Highgate Cemetery , London. Sketch from Nature on Nov. 14, 2003, 41x51 cm oil on canvas

Diana Machulina could become an art icon of the new South Russian wave. But she has graduated from three Moscow art colleges and art academy in Stuttgart, there she has perceived an intern... Read more »

Russian-Ukrainian photographer Sergey Bratkov (born in 1960, Kharkov) considers himself firstly as an artist, even a sculptor.

From the "A Police Relay" series, 2003

One could say that I want to make painting from the photography. But really I want to do rather a sculpture which has a shape, volume, mass. The scupture is closer to the photo I think. I shoot really different. Traditionally the photography is emotional, especially amateur shots. But I do not shoot emotionally and my composition is also different. For example I almost don’t use the central focus. In addition the light and shadow are very important for the traditional perception of the photography but for me it doesn’t matter.
... Read more »

Alexei Kallima was born in Chechnya in 1969. But he had to leave Grozny in 1994 because of the war and came to Moscow. Now he’s known as perhaps the only contemporary Russian artist working with the Chechen theme.

Henchmen, 2005, private collection, Moscow

His heroes are young Chechens. Maybe they’re terrorists or just illegal immigrants. Unshaven, arrayed in Adidas tracksuits, dark glasses and woolly hats. For some of his graffiti Kallima uses fluorescent paint only visible in the rays of «black light». So his art works can materialise just in a darkened room but when ordinary lights are switched on the picture disappears. Kallima's heroes only inhabit the dark as well. To say the truth we know nothing ... Read more »

Konstantin Zvezdochetov (1958, Moscow) is one of the most recognizable artists in contemporary Russian art. He used to be one of the activists of APTART movement in the eighties. He was the «New Wave» leader implanting the vivacious happy-go-lucky street culture, rock-n-roll drive and the rowdy aesthetics of true poetry into «rigid» body of Moscow Conceptualism. Zvezdochetov was an active member of the «Mukhomor» («Amanita») group, which was one of the Russia's brightest underground art movements in the eighties, and the «playing coach» in the «World Champions» group of the ninties. He's almost the only member of either group who didn't give up art practice even in the most difficult times for contemporary art.

Te... Read more »

One of the most succeful Russian artists Valery Koshlyakov was born in 1962 in Salsk (Rostov region). He studied in Rostov M. Grekov art college. Then he has begun to interest in realistic painting. After graduating from the college Koshlyakov began to work as decorator in the local theater of musical comedy and had an acquantance to artist Avdey Ter-Oganyan. He introduced him to the works of the Western avant-garde. In 1988th Koshlyakov became a member of the artistic association "Art or Death". Avdey Ter-Oganyan was its leader and the assocoation also included artists Alexey Sigutin, Yuri Shabelnikov, Nikolay Konstantinov, Vasily Slepchenko, poet Miroslav Nemiroff, musician Sergei Timofeyev, etc.

Valery Koshlyako... Read more »

Artist Georgy (Gosha) Ostretsov (born in 1967th) is one of the brightest representatives of Moscow avant-garde artistic life of the eighties. He practically founded the genre of man-style in Russia, and announced a fashion and style as the new language of contemporary art. Then a whole generation of artists has been developing this trend: Andrey Bartenev, Alexander Petlura and others. I like to discover the avant-garde art flows of eighties. These pre-psychedelic experiments were very important for Moscow art life.

In the late eighties Ostretsov issued a series of fashion collections, appealing to a military avant-garde fashion of 1920s, to the traditions of Russian wooden toys and others. A lot of creative... Read more »