Artists gathered at Zaryadye – Kommersant FM

Kommersant FM columnist Dmitry Butkevich talks about the essence of the Zaryadye Park project, as well as about the new Parking Gallery space.

Last year, the Zaryadye complex launched a rather interesting project for the first time. This was the idea to present in one space graduates from all capital educational institutions at once, training artists of different directions. There were a lot of such universities. This year, the exhibition project opened again on City Day and will last until November 12.

At the same time, a new space was presented here – the “Parking Gallery”. It actually occupied part of the huge underground parking lot under Zaryadyevo Hill. This is 3 thousand square meters. m, the third largest exhibition space in the Moscow historical center after Gostiny Dvor (almost 13 thousand square meters) and the Big Manege (9 thousand). 20 educational institutions produce a huge number of artists in Moscow. 255 people took part in this exhibition alone.

Don’t ask me why there are so many of them and where they go to work. I can only answer for GITIS graduates. The Faculty of Scenography of the Russian Institute of Theater Arts annually graduates from three to 10 costume designers or stage designers. They are always in demand among Russian theaters. I can’t even imagine where graduate artists from the State University of Civil Engineering or the State University of Land Management might be needed.

But I’ve had enough of grumbling—to paraphrase Mayakovsky, I’ll say: if so many artists are being produced, it means someone needs it. It is interesting to look at a cross-section of the current ideas of young authors about beauty.

At the Andriyaki Watercolor Academy and the Surikov Institute, these are traditionally cyclopean works – landscapes and genres, respectively, in watercolor technique and oil. The Stroganov Academy has applied arts. The cleverly imagined graduates of the Backstein Institute or Universal University (as the former Britannia is now called) have, as I say, art made from twigs and pieces of fabric. With a claim to science art. GITIS has perfectly executed costumes by Fyodor Arkhipov and Anna Topuridze. Such different young authors.