RUSSIA: New contemporary art gallery run by Dasha Zhukova, the girlfriend of Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, opens in Moscow

Record ID: 572639

  • Title: RUSSIA: New contemporary art gallery run by Dasha Zhukova, the girlfriend of Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, opens in Moscow
  • Date: 17th September 2008
  • Summary: (CEEF) MOSCOW, RUSSIA (SEPTEMBER 16, 2008) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF THE 'GARAGE, CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY CULTURE' GALLERY, IN FORMER BUS DEPOT SIGN OF BUS DEPOT PEOPLE OUTSIDE GALLERY
  • Embargoed: 2nd October 2008 13:00
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  • Topics: Lifestyle
  • Reuters ID: LVA3Y7C5BYS729D7YSYXIOL5G3SF
  • Story Text: Fashion designer and former model Daria Zhukova opened a new avant -garde art gallery in a remodelled Moscow bus garage on Tuesday (September 16), attended by her Russian billionaire boyfriend Roman Abramovich.
    'Garage, Centre for Contemporary Culture', will be run by Zhukova and is a non-profit exhibition space housing Russian art located just outside central Moscow.
    A retrospective exhibit by Russian conceptual artists Emilia and Ilya Kabakov opened the gallery fronted by white Grecian columns, which is bigger than a football field at 8,500 square feet, becoming Moscow's largest art space.
    At the opening the pair were awarded the 140,000 USD Praemium Imperiale Japanese global arts prize, which is given annually to a handful of artists by the Japan Arts Association.
    "We are extremely grateful for this award, we are very touched by this, we don't know how to express this fully," Emilia Kabakova who generally does not give interviews or talk publicly said on behalf of herself and husband Ilya.
    "Of course it is extraordinary that this coincides with our visit to Russia and the opening of this excellent new centre in this epic building by which in this time offers the building not of a utopia but of a real thing, the Centre of Contemporary Culture," she added.
    Zhukova, who was born in 1981 in Moscow and moved to the United States as a child, told Reuters TV she hoped the gallery could become place for people to enjoy creativity.
    "It's amazing that Moscow has space finally they can combine exhibitions of contemporary art, that will have a library, a cafe, a bookstore, and just a place where people can come and enjoy creativity, art," she said.
    For the inaugural show titled 'An Alternative History of Art', Ilya and Emilia Kabakov created works of art by three 'fictitious artists'. Ilya Kabakov (not the real Ilya Kabakov), Igor Spivak and Charles Rosenthal - which hang in a fictitious art museum, built inside the hangar-like space of Garage.
    "Historically Russia has always been a big patron of the arts, so I think that perhaps there's now a higher interest in Russia and a bit more attention on Russia. So people are starting to recognise Russia as a player in the art market as well," Zhukova said in the gallery's upmarket cafe, which is lined with Soviet-era film posters.
    Zhukova said London's Tate Modern museum was a "great inspiration" for Garage, which has a large open hall with exposed piping and metallic shafts and was built by Russian architect Konstantin Melnikov in 1926-1927.
    "I would like to see everyone helping it because in Russia there is a tendency to disbelieve, and it is right that many projects are started and dropped. But here we have worked together for a whole year, and I can say definitely, it won't be abandoned, it needs belief and faith that it will happen, and it will happen," 62-year old Emilia Kabakova told Reuters.
    "I think it really raises the value of the Moscow art scene,"
    said Joseph Backstein, curator of the Kabakovs' exhibit and organiser of the second Moscow art biennial, which showcased contemporary international art last year.
    "From this moment it looks different, it is structured differently and it sees itself differently and the outside world sees it differently. In my memory in the history of Moscow art, we haven't had exhibitions on this scale, of this historical importance, as this by the great artists Ilya and Emilia Kabakov," he added.
    Zhukova refuses to name the figure on the Garage's pricetag, but says its financing came from "private sponsorship" and later aims to self-finance through a membership programme and museum services.
    It is largely speculated that Abramovich, who owns London's Chelsea football club and has earned billions of dollars from commodities and oil, has financed the project.
    When asked if he had sponsored Garage, Abramovich broadly smiled and smoothed out his blue suit, but did not answer.
    Over the last ten years, interest in Russian art and culture has boomed both at home and abroad as the economy prospers.
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