IZO

Alexei Buldakov is one of the krix picks (Artforum).

Marat Guelman and Perm senator Sergei Gordeev are jointly creating a museum of contemporary art in Perm. The focus will be on arte povera - in the Russian but also Italian and international variants. The choice of theme is, in part, to accommodate Perm folk traditions. Guelman on the difference between Russian and Italian arte povera:

...imagine two starving people. One doesn't eat because he is dieting, watching his figure, going swimming and to the doctor - his world is full of food, but he refuses it. The other is starving because he is poor - he fantasises about food, it appears in his dreams, but he has no money to buy it. Superficially, they're both doing the same thing, like "Russian Poor Art" and Italian arte povera, but they are the outcome of differing intentions...

Well, I liked that when I read it, but now I think about it, it's probably inaccurate. Italian arte povera emerged out of a post-war situation in which (as we can see in neo-realist cinema) poverty was a reality for many. The real arte povera these days, i e that dictated by poverty, is probably being made in Africa. But for all that, I think the Guelman-Gordeev undertaking is a great project.

Background to Komar and Melamid's Most Wanted... (scroll down) (necessarilyunashamed).

Some resources: Andrei Kovalev's recent book on Moscow Actionism of the 90s has sold out, but his flickr stream has loads of documentary photos (flickr). David Riff's blog contains occasional essays on events in Moscow, most recently Viktor Alimpiev's show at the Ekaterina Foundation (Moscow Diary). ARTinvestment.RU is a new Russian-language site analysing the market (artinvestment.ru)

Report, including images, from the Moscow International Biennale of Young Art (vash-pasha, in Russian).

A look at the by all accounts successful Moscow International Biennale of Young Art, curated by Darya Pyrkina (Artinfo).

Dima Gutov and Miss Far East: you can read about his impressions of Khabarovsk (Open Space, in Russian).

A long video interview with Marat Guelman about the museum-funding question, the Erofeev affair and Olga Sviblova (galerist, in Russian). Meanwhile, on the Forbidden Art question, Igor Markin thinks that (art4ru):

Without a doubt the time will come when Erofeev will be asked to return to the Tretyakov Gallery on a white horse,
soon Rodionov will despatched on the heels of the former Minister of Culture Sokolov direct to Hell
very soon

Russia's top ten young artists (starting on page 2) (Andrei Kovalev/Time Out, in Russian; via maxmaxovich). They are - no, you go read it yourself, it'll be good for your cyrillic...

The star Russian turns at Phillips de Pury's sales on Sunday and Monday - Semyon Faibisovich (top price £109,250), Erik Bulatov (top price £115,750), Natalia Nesterova (top price £61,250) Ivan Chuikov (£73,250) and Oleg Vasilev (top price £87,650) - held up well. The most striking result to my mind was £117,650 paid for a painting by Lev Tabenkin. A painting by Chichkan made £37,250: a sign of the expanding Ukrainian collectors' market. This said, many Russian works failed to sell, including two works each by Vulokh, Dyshlenko and AES+F, one each by Nesterova, Nazarenko, Pepperstein and Timur Novikov. (All quoted prices inc. buyer's premium).