Anna Barinova, founder of Anna Nova Gallery, took part in the discussion NEW OPPORTUNITIES: CONTEMPORARY RUSSIAN ART IN THE BRICS MARKET during the Creative Business Forum, which was arranged during the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
Other participants of the discussion were Polina Askery (Askeri Gallery), Anastasia Volkova (SISTEMA GALLERY), Hossein Mohseni (Artibition), Vasily Tsereteli (Moscow Museum of Modern Art), and Guanyu Zhang (Centre of Contemporary Art No. 9). The discussion was moderated by Sofia Trotsenko, founder of Winzavod Centre for Contemporary Art.
The participants talked about the development and expansion prospects that contemporary art has in the countries of Asia, Middle East, and Latin America. Moreover, they mapped out the steps that can help implement the potential it holds.
Anna spoke about the international collaboration experience between her Gallery and Chinese entities, elaborated on possibilities and prospects of such collaborations, highlighted significance of cross-cultural exchange and demonstration of the most up-to-date Russian contemporary art at international fairs and biennials. Further, she went into the details of the difficulties encountered by Russian gallery owners when they work with partners from abroad.
Transcript of Anna’s report:
Ever since the Gallery was founded, we've been focusing on the international market. Firstly, we took part in European fairs, but in 2012 the Gallery took part in AHAF and SPOON, contemporary art fairs set in Hong Kong. We decided to join Asian fairs after we had successfully participated in a Korean fair in 2011. China welcomed us warmly. There, we showcased St. Petersburg artists that were relevant at that moment.
In 2019, we came to China once again to go in for Shanghai Photofairs. We brought works by artist Valery Katsuba to that photographic fair. His works were noticed by Liu Heung Shing, founder of the Shanghai Centre of Photography, and Karen Smith, the Centre’s curator. Both of them liked Katsuba’s works so much that they offered him to have a solo exhibition in SCoP (Shanghai Centre of Photography).
In 2021, the Gallery was the coorganizer of Katsuba’s major exhibition in Shanghai Centre of Photography, which was curated by Karen Smith, a British art expert. The name of the exhibition was RUSSIAN ROMANTIC REALISM, and that year it was the most visited event, which made it into TOP-10 of the best Shanghai-visited exhibitions in 2021.
In the same year, the Gallery took part in a photographic fair in Shanghai but because of the pandemics they did it online. In fact, the entire fair was arranged online.
As of today, I feel that it is essential that Russian galleries are in attendance in the international context. We need to keep in touch for further progress, to establish discussion platforms where we can share experience, talk to and negotiate with the leaders of BRICS countries as regards to contemporary art. One of the events that we as a gallery would like to take part in is ART021 fair in Shanghai and the Biennale of Contemporary Art in Brazil.
At the same time, we have to comprehend what kind of art we can showcase. We have to keep up with the times, be up-to-date and trendy. We can present extensive multidisciplinary installations, or research projects. In particular, this is why we should initiate the dialogue - to study the institutional experience of BRICS countries and learn what art their communities can find interesting. Yet, to reach these objectives we need to solve the problems encountered in the functional operation services, to streamline our payment and money transfer options, to ease the Russian entry/exit system and so on.