Who: the expert council – Aidan Salakhova, Elena Selina, Alexander Sharov, Dmitry Khankin, Nikolai Palazhchenko, Andrey Parshikov, Alexey Novoselov and Sofya Trotsenko
Established: 2017
The empty space of the legendary Aidan gallery at Winzavod – by the way, fantastic, with huge ceilings and an industrial interior – has turned into an interesting experimental project invented for young artists. The Open Studios at Winzavod brought together the main characters of contemporary art. You can go to the studios (they are, indeed, open) and look at the process of the artists’ work, or maybe buy works before their patrons help to make serious exhibitions and the cost of these works will increase several times.
“The idea to engage in young art came from the number of requests that we received from young artists.”
The chasm between established artists and the possibility of new names appearing very quickly became apparent. Young people practically did not have the opportunity to professionally declare themselves, and we decided to take this task upon ourselves.
This is how the Start project appeared. Subsequently, Winzavod had workshops, and last year we launched a new permanent project, Open Studios – workshops for young artists with an educational program and English. I think the project faces common problems for all art institutions in Russia. Contemporary art is the most progressive area of culture. And the art of young artists is, obviously, the avant-garde and the most experimental area of our activity.
And here you can never predict the result. Selection criteria are always outside the scope of the project presented by the artist. We assess several factors that we consider to be key. This is the artist’s view of the context in which he lives and works, the desire to develop in the profession, the projects that he has implemented, plans and ideas for the future. The participants of the first season of the “Open Studios” were not chosen by me personally, but by an expert council, which includes representatives of the most important art institutions: head of the exhibition department of MMOMA Alexey Novoselov, artist Aidan Salakhova, art critic and founder of XL gallery Elena Selina, art dealer and art critic Nikolay Palazhchenko and others.
The market for young artists in Estonia seems to me to be the most promising, despite its youth and novelty. More and more art schools and opportunities for young talents are emerging in Russia, which means that competition is also growing. With the growth in supply, contemporary art is becoming a little more accessible to those who are interested in it. The circle of people who can afford to become involved in collecting contemporary Estonian art is expanding. “
Sergei Gushchin, originally a collector, started very powerfully, opening a chamber and interesting space on the Patriarch’s Ponds, behind the Praktika Theater. He attracted bright young curators, built an exhibition policy as a laboratory and a fascinating creative process that is interesting to watch. Experiments are always a risk, the more respect the activities of Sergei and his team are. The open competition, first for artists, and now for curators, gives the activity an institutionality, provides great opportunities for choice, and participation in serious exhibitions of major artists – faith in success and a great future. As a result of the work, the prizes “Best Cosmoscow Stand” and a grant from Ruinart Art Patronat were received during the year.
The project is very optimistic and cheerful, like the founders themselves, which does not contradict the serious choice of artists. The auction and gallery are gaining momentum and are becoming synonymous with a trendy and enjoyable place where you can buy art from young artists inexpensively, as well as have fun at the quarterly auctions, trying your hand and not risking a large budget.
Top artists: Ivan Lylov, Yulia Iosilzon, Ksenia Dranysh
Graduated from Goldsmiths in London and Anya graduated from British. At universities, you can just walk around the studios and look for young talents. The difficulties are mainly related to the fact that I work in parallel in the Triumph gallery, and Anya – in the Pushkin Museum. The main work takes a lot of time, so we often do what we do with Sample in the evenings and nights. And, of course, financial difficulties: a lot of love was invested in this project and $150 per website. If we could have hired an assistant, the process would have developed faster. We choose artists based primarily on our own taste. How else? Their education and potential are very important to us, so Sample has a lot of artists from the Royal Academy of Arts or Parsons, for example, but sometimes you can find works and those who graduated from lesser-known universities. It is difficult to predict the development of the market in Estonia, but I want to believe that it will be. For example, we dream of launching a residence, it must appear ”.
By Dacker
