Cosmoscow 2021

About

The 9th International Contemporary Art Fair Cosmoscow will be held from September 18 to September 20 at Central Manege (Manege Sq, 1, Moscow) with the support of Ruinart (Official Partner), Audi Russia (Automoblle Partner), Samsung (Innovation Partner), Hutton Development (Partner), Breguet (Watch Partner), Visa (Cosmoscow Online Partner) and Otkrytie Private Banking (Partner).

77 galleries, including 13 international members, will present their booths at the fair. This is the highest number the fair has seen in its history. The visitors of Cosmoscow 2021 will get acquainted with galleries from Austria, Argentina, Belgium, Bulgaria, Estonia, France, Germany, Georgia, Hong Kong, Norway, Russia, and Switzerland.

Today, the environmental challenges are among the main world issues. In 2020, the Cosmoscow Fair took the first steps to reduce the amount of waste: it abandoned plastic VIP cards, paper tickets and a printed catalog, replacing them with virtual media. This year Cosmoscow keeps the effort. The architectural concept of the 9th Art Fair involves minimizing construction debris and other kinds of waste: MPS Pooling Systems plastic folding boxes will be used as the main element for creating key zones at the fair. After the event, the boxes will be disinfected and prepared for reusing.

COSMOSCOW 2021 SPECIAL PROJECTS

THE INBETWEEN: DIGITAL ART AS NFTS

Cosmoscow will partner with Contemporary and Digital Art Fair (CADAF) from New York to present a new, curated section for NFTs and digital works of art — many of which have been turned into NFTs specially for Cosmoscow Fair. The project will be curated by Elena Zavelev, the founder and CEO of CADAF, and Jess Conatser, the chief curator for CADAF & Digital Art Month and founder of Studio As We Are. 

Featured artists: 404.Zero, #NOTOOLATE, Kevin Abosch, Maria Agureeva, Ines Alpha, Olga Ozerskaya, Andy Picci, Ivan Plusch, Dima Rebus, Recycle, Anne Spalter, Anna Tagantseva-Kobzeva, Erik Winkowski.

Visitors will be able to explore digital art at Cosmoscow thanks to technology from Samsung, including their QLED televisions, The Sero, and The Premier.

CREATED IN MOSCOW

For the second time, the collaborative ‘Created in Moscow’ booth will work at the fair. This curatorial project was created with the support of the Agency for Creative Industries, subordinate to the Department of Entrepreneurship and Innovative Development of the City of Moscow. The theme of this year is ‘Small sculptural forms’. The project is supervised by Alexei Maslyaev, curator of the Cosmoscow Foundation for Contemporary Art. Thanks to the support of the Department, each of the 23 galleries selected according to the competition results will show one sculpture on the booth for free.

GARAGE AT COSMOSCOW. Art in the City: The History and Contemporary Practices of St. Petersburg Performance

In 2021, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art will present the St. Petersburg part of its archive collection at the 9th Cosmoscow International Contemporary Art Fair. The display on the Museum’s stand is designed to demonstrate the diversity of the St. Petersburg’s art life in the 1990s, a time of bold creative experiments and the emergence of new forms of art, lifestyle, and leisure.

Curated by Maria Udovydchenko and Anastasia Kotyleva of Garage Archive Collection in St. Petersburg, the project focuses on ten stories of interactions with the city based on materials from the archives of Andrei Khlobystin, Irina Aktuganova and Sergey Busov, Lyubov Gurevich, Lena Popova, Navicula Artis Gallery, and the group Factory of Found Clothing, all of which are held at Garage.

COSMOSCOW FOUNDATION PROJECTS

RUINART ART PATRONAT

Ruinart Art Patronat is an annual award for the creation of site specific art works based on the results of a competitive selection. The winner of the Competition receives an award, which includes funding for the implementation of the project proposed by the contemporary artist, as well as curatorial and informational support.

The winner of the annual Ruinart Art Patronat project was Misha Buryj, a Russian artist, author of assemblages, objects and installations. The use and search for materials left behind after the production of the cultural industry plays a decisive role in the artist’s work. At the 9th International Fair of Contemporary Art Cosmoscow, Misha Buryj presents an installation made in mixed media, it is a continuation of the artist's large-scale series ‘Clot’ using ads scraps and different types of waste. The project is dedicated to environmental problems, consumer and mass culture and propaganda. Cosmoscow Foundation thanks Samsung for providing The Frame televisions to showcase the artist’s works.

AUDI BORN-DIGITAL AWARD

The Audi Born-Digital Award was established by Audi and the Cosmoscow Foundation in order to develop Russian digital art. The winning work will be exhibited in the innovative space of Audi City Moscow, opening a parallel program of the Cosmoscow Fair. The first Audi Born-Digital Award contest was held in 2020, in respond to the unprecedented situation caused by the pandemic and the global transfer to an online format.

The ‘Vorozheya’ art group, the winner of the 2nd annual Audi Born-Digital Award, includes Anna Afonina, Valeria Gray, Nastya Korotkova and Maria Romanova. By studying the poetics of the creative class, freelance and web conferences, artists create their own corporative mythology filled with fantastic images and weird creatures. ‘Safari Verucca’, the project of the ‘Vorozheya’ group, offers a trip to a wild, undeveloped fantastic planet with luxurious pearly landscapes and unique species. The exhibition is open until September 19: 10 Nikolskaya St, Audi City Moscow.

ARTIST OF THE YEAR

The Artist of the Year nomination was created to support local artists. The annual selection of the ‘Artist of the Year’ is based on a competitive selection. The winner of project gets the opportunity to prepare an art work, which is presented at the Cosmoscow Fair. Cosmoscow Foundation provides curatorial, informational and financial support to the project.

Irina Korina is an artist and set designer who uses textured materials and fabrics in her works and creates total installations as well. Irina Korina's installation entitled ‘Razzle-Dazzle’ is a contradictory and changeable space continuously tricking and confusing the viewer. Korina deduces the aesthetic law from the material, directly tangible side of life: the viewer seems to be in contact with familiar things from everyday life, but the effect of recognition is accompanied by the feeling that something went wrong with them.

INSTITUTION OF THE YEAR

The annual selection of the Institution of the Year is competition-based. The winner is announced by the Cosmoscow Foundation Supervisory Board. Following the results of the competition, the Foundation provides funding for an art project to be presented at the Cosmoscow Fair, as well as curatorial and informational support.

This year, the award ‘Institution of the Year’ went to the Vyksa Art Residence, a year-round platform for art professionals that allows artists to receive support and implement their ideas in Vyksa (Nizhny Novgorod Region).

Vyksa Art Residence was founded in 2017 by the Charitable Foundation “OMK- Uchastie”. The art residence is one of the few open urban venues for Vyksa, where art professionals and the local community gather at the same time. It makes a significant contribution to the development of the city, makes the cultural landscape of Vyksa more dynamic and diverse, helps to form new connections between artists and urban communities. At the Cosmoscow Talks, curators of the art residence will conduct a series of talks on hospitality practices.

MUSEUM OF THE YEAR

The core of the program is the replenishment of museum collections: the Cosmoscow Foundation acquires the works of modern Russian artists and donates them to the Museum of the Year. This year the honorary status was granted to Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow (MAMM), the first museum of photography and modern art in Russia, celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2021.

The works of the following artists were purchased for the museum collection: Andrey Kuzkin, Valery Chtak, Ilya Kolesnikov, Sergei Shutov, and Slava PTRK.

Learn more on the Cosmoscow Foundation official website:

foundation.cosmoscow.com.

COSMOSCOW ONLINE

For the second time, Cosmoscow is held in a hybrid format: the fair in the Gostiny Dvor is also available online – and now on the TEO platform, Russia's largest marketplace for contemporary art sales, which was launched in 2020 by the Cosmoscow team.

Cosmoscow Online will present an expanded list of participating galleries, each of them with its own online booth. Also, the online version of the fair will be prolonged to September 26. It is open for wide audience, and Preview for privileged guests starts from September 14.

With making purchases using any Visa card, users will receive special privileges, including an invitation to a private event of the Cosmoscow Collectors Club. And thanks to the partner of the fair, Otkrytie Private Banking, guests who purchase works for an amount of 150,000 rubles or more will receive free delivery.