“The research programme initiated by the Expert Council of the Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art is a large-scale and long-term project designed to identify and constantly update the creative potential of our country.

The existing system makes it possible to believe that it is limitless, while the results of regional initiatives are striking each time not only due to the abundance of significant new artists, but also owing to the originality and conviction of the new trends that they declare. And all this is happening despite the fact that only slightly more than a dozen of the hundreds of Russian cities have appeared on “the map of art initiatives”. And that is the reason why the programme aims not only to collect and analyse information about the current state of art in Russian regions, but also to create an effective mechanism for updating this picture - through a network of professional relationships. And this is the kind of network – of national, and not limited institutional proportions - that should serve as the basis for the selection of artists to be represented at the Moscow Biennale, proceeding from its status as a major national project, which defines the place of Russia’s contemporary art in developments in global art.”

Nataliya Sipovskaya
Director of the State Institute for Art Studies