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ARTStrelka Arts Center held a farewell exhibition

Until the end of June, it will still be possible to visit the exhibitions of the ARTStrelka center, which has become a cult for many people involved in the artistic life of Moscow. Starting in July, ARTStrelka will be repurposed into a new cultural space. The new owners are destined to do this - first of all, businessman Alexander Mamut, who became the owner of ARTStrelka. The developers of the new image of ARTStrelka will be the director of ORT-design, the chief artist of the First TV Channel, Dmitry Likin (known as the art director of the once famous magazine Ptyuch), and the general director of the Afisha company, Ilya Oskolkov-Tsentsiper. There is a premonition that the new Strelka will be positive, glamorous, major, like the past and current brainchild of the creatives of the new image. And the new cultural center will be servile in every sense (there is already a plan to break through a suite of galleries in one building in order to set up restaurants and boutiques there). And our official consumerist ideology will please. The participation of Channel One explains a lot, after all.

In fact, it is necessary to look at the coming changes philosophically. The Red October factory, on whose territory the center is located (occupies the former garages of the factory), agreed to live together with ARTStrelka for five years (despite the fact that the initial agreement was concluded for only two years). And thanks to the organizational genius of the artistic director of the center, Olga Lopukhova, ARTStrelka completed its mission in full. The curator and many employees from other galleries located at Strelka (for example, ABC) worked with the most inconvenient, experimental, rough and young art. Along with the galleries XL, Aidan, Regina, M&Y Gelman (sometimes ahead of them), ARTStrelka discovered new names and held premiere shows of artists who had just made their name. Thanks to the wise strategy of Olga Lopukhova, which she came up with for her gallery ARTStrelka projects, the frontmen of the artistic process in Russia are now Khaim Sokol, Anna Zhelud, Andrey Kuzkin... Systematically and competently within the walls of the gallery ARTStrelka projects, the project of presenting the work of young conceptualists of the 80s, some of which are unfairly deprived of the attention of the domestic art community.

Ahead of the currently fashionable cultural associations (Winzavod, Project Factory, Garage), ARTStrelka became the first art settlement in the industrial zone. Thus, she was the first to update for Russia the most sought-after image of the presentation of the artistic process in the world.

The latest exhibition of the ARTStrelka projects gallery was the installation of the young Ivan Lungin Ex Barricadas. In two halls of the gallery, a master trained in Paris created something like a breathtaking diorama on the plot of the revolutionary student riots of 1968. Barricades made from bags filled with earth and stacks of books (catalogs from the latest ArtKlyazma - another successful project by Olga Lopukhova and Vladimir Dubossarsky). Wheelbarrows with broken bricks. Behind them, along the perimeter, are paintings with black earth, deliberately rough paintings: street battles and the conduct of a city tense in its hidden aggression. Brutal, the color of spring soil, the painting convinces with the powerful denotative energy of Anselm Kiefer’s language. The ability to build a visual performance with several spatial plans using painting and objects correlates with the work of Valery Koshlyakov and Alexander Brodsky. In general, the code of the opus called ARTStrelka projects came out impressive, strong in idea and emotions.

On the day of the vernissage, May 30, the ceremony of presenting the annual Companion Award, established in 2005 by artist Anton Litvin and curator Olga Lopukhova as an award for artists to artists (an applicant for the nomination of a candidate artist for competition can only be an artist) took place. The winners were Irina Korina, Andrey Kuzkin and Khaim Sokol. After the ceremony, Andrei Kuzkin organized his personal happening right on ARTStrelki Square - he made conceptual art objects in paper frames with magic numbers written in the corners for those who wanted. Overall, the farewell to ARTStrelka went as it should: without tears, but with the right creative drive.

According to Olga Lopukhova, the completion of one project is a good reason to start another. Let's hope we won't have to wait long.

Sergei KHACHATUROV