In the spring of 2019, during the First MMOMA Street Art Forum, the Ruarts Foundation offered artists not a conventional exhibition hall, but a wall within the arch to the right of the entrance to the museum’s Education Center.
The format was simple—one author creates a piece, and a few months later, the next one completes it.
Initially, the idea of handing over museum walls to street artists felt more like an experiment, but today, that’s not surprising anymore. In the past seven years, street art has successfully entered museum collections and become part of major biennials and public art installations. Furthermore, artists once known only through graffiti crews have started holding solo exhibitions and collaborating with institutions.Nineteen artists—including Dmitry Aske, Alexey Luka, Ivan Nainty, Dusto, Grisha, Maxim Ima, 0331c, Misha Bury, Kirill Ashastin, 404, and others—have gone through ARCA. This list now reads more like a snapshot of contemporary Russian street art.
The last piece was «Fence» by artist 404. A painted wooden fence appeared on the wall, through the gaps of which blue sky is visible. This is a signature technique of the artist—to find a new image within the urban environment. Even his pseudonym is integrated into the composition—the fours are formed from boards, and the zeros create voids.
But something else feels symbolic. While ARCA existed, the debate about whether street art could be museum art gradually lost its relevance. During this time, not only the project changed—the attitude toward the genre itself evolved. If in the late 2010s collaboration between museums and street artists was still viewed as an experiment, today it has become part of artistic practice.Therefore, the completion of ARCA is a convenient point to look back. At the Ruarts Foundation, they explain that there were no special reasons for this; the project simply «reached its logical conclusion.» As it turned out, one small wall managed to preserve far more than nineteen murals. It captured the moment when Russian street art belongs not just to the street.
