The Cosmoscow fair has officially opened today, and I must say, it is incredibly easy to get lost here. Over a hundred booths are set up in the Timiryazev Center. While everyone around is writing about the chief artist of the year, Igor Samolet, or about Vladey’s return to the fair, most of the galleries remain overlooked. We decided to correct that oversight.
One should begin with the Community of Modern Siberian Artists. Unlike many commercial galleries, there is no feeling of a curated selection of individual pieces here: the booth is assembled like a mystical forest, where all the works gradually coalesce into a single landscape. The artists discuss human interaction with the wild nature, but these works can be appreciated even without knowledge of the context of Siberian art. Pay attention to Amgalan Rinchine and his haunting ceramic faces.
Don’t forget to stop by SPACE13. This is a Samara gallery founded just three years ago. It is particularly fascinating to watch how vastly different artistic languages converge around conversations about time and the perception of reality. The works do not require specialized preparation from the viewer—rather, they invite you to slow down a bit and look at them more closely. Three artists are featured here: Marina Niko, Maria Stadnik, and Alexander Filimonov. We highly recommend noting each of them.
Everything here is built around the motif of the journey. The gallery artists—Stas Falkov, Alexey Semichov, and Nariman Kalashnikov—each speak about movement in their own way: as a voyage, a search for grounding, or a transition between reality and dream. This is a prime example of how a single theme can unite artists from different generations without reducing the exhibition to a mere illustration of one idea.
If you only have 20 minutes to check out the fair between the new seasonal openings, we suggest stopping by these three booths, each telling its own story.
