“The concept is more than unusual” – Kommersant FM

Kommersant FM columnist Dmitry Butkevich tells what ideas guided the author and curator of the project.

More and more often we hear about “new collectors” on the art scene. I decided to look into this trend and will make several programs about it in the near future.

We are primarily talking about collectors, so to speak, in the middle price category. They appeared (by the way, all over the world) during the pandemic. This is also evidenced by the results of rapid growth in sales at online auctions. Some people have more time, others never wanted to participate in the usual art process – going to exhibitions, to social events and pre-auction shows that were snobbish for them.

In Russia, as we remember, the niche was instantly filled by the group “Ball and Cross”, which quickly gained popularity, where from 5 thousand rubles. up to 10 thousand rubles it was proposed to pay artists directly for a drawing or canvas. It was there that the co-founder of the fashionable Telegram channel “Antiglyant” Tatyana Stolyar began her collecting journey. Now she already has 40 works by contemporary artists, and most importantly, she already has her first exhibition, which is called “Forest of Predilections.”

The concept is more than unusual. Stolyar commissioned works from various artists (importantly: only those whose works were not yet in her collection) on the given theme of the phenomenon of various “addictions”, “codependent relationships”, which she herself found herself in and, on the advice of a psychotherapist, from which she tried to get out with the help of art. The exhibition presents works mainly by young people, that is, also, one might say, from the “new” ones. But some are already known. There are also works by Ivan Gorshkov and Artem Filatov.

The curator of the project, Valentin Dyakonov, ex-art critic of Kommersant, is also well-known. He built both the concept and the exhibition. And for some reason he even forced the viewer to squat down, and in some cases almost lie down, in order to read the small print of the labels located almost near the floor. Probably, this is such a literal overcoming – a special plan. The chamber exhibition was placed not in the gallery, but in an independent space (which the author of the idea also insisted on) Peak Souvenir in Stoleshnikov Lane.