Art Focus Now

Home
Russia
Saint Petersburg
Art Focus Now

Art Focus Now is an online magazine and newsletter created by journalists, critics and researchers.

We focus on what is now in contemporary art in Eastern Europe, including Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltics; the Caucasus and Central Asia.

18/09/2026

What if “naïve” art is not so naïve after all?

Not-So-Naïve: Art Beyond the Rules at Moscow’s Tsaritsyno Museum-Reserve challenges the idea of naïve art as charming amateurism. Bringing together works from twelve museum collections, the exhibition traces a tradition deeply rooted in folk culture, shaped by Soviet life and strikingly original in its vision.

From Pavel Leonov’s intricate imaginary worlds to reinterpreted Old Masters, handcrafted icons, artists’ books and fantasies of space exploration, naïve art emerges as a distinctive world with its own rules.

Read the full story via the link: https://artfocusnow.com/news/swans-saints-and-spuntniks-naïve-art-on-view-in-moscow/

Images:
1-Maria Primachenko. Mountain Goose, 1961. Courtesy of Tsaritsyno Museum-Reserve
2-Alexey Pichugin. The Last day of Pompeii, 1981. Courtesy of Tsaritsyno Museum-Reserve
3- Ivan Nikiforov. Wedding Ceremony, 1971. Courtesy of Tsaritsyno Museum-Reserve

17/09/2026

What happens when a book about curating leaves too little room for art itself?

British writer and curator Alistair Hicks reviews Viktor Misiano’s Five Lectures on Curatorship, newly translated into English and published by Garage Museum of Contemporary Art. The book fills an important gap, tracing the history of curating from a Russian and European perspective — from pioneering exhibitions of the 1960s to questions of the art system, ethics and the marginalisation of Russian art.

Read the full review via the link: https://artfocusnow.com/news/my-baby-has-gone-down-the-plughole-a-review-of-viktor-misianos-book-on-curating/

Images: Viktor Misiano. Five Lectures on Curatorship. Book spread. Courtesy of Garage Museum of Contemporary Art

16/09/2026

From comradeship to curatorship: the AFN team shares four books exploring art, politics, painting and exhibition-making — from post-socialist Europe to the evolving language of contemporary art.

What’s on your reading list? Share your recommendations in the comments!

09/09/2026

An unprecedented 60,000 visitors, buoyant sales and a growing number of new collectors: Cosmoscow 2026 revealed Russia’s continuing hunger for contemporary art.

With museums’ engagement with contemporary artists at a minimum, the country’s leading contemporary art fair remains a major venue for tracking trends in the domestic market. This year, 108 galleries participated, while collector activity was exceptionally strong — reflecting the rise of collecting both as a social pastime and a means of socialising.

Read the full art market report via the link: https://artfocusnow.com/art-market/cosmoscow-and-russias-hunger-for-contemporary-art/

Images:
1 - Syntax Gallery booth. Cosmoscow 2026. Moscow, 2026. Courtesy of Syntax Gallery
2 - pop/off/art booth. Cosmoscow 2026. Moscow, 2026. Courtesy of pop/off/art
3 - Boroom Gallery booth. Cosmoscow 2026. Moscow, 2026. Courtesy of Boroom Gallery

07/09/2026

In an age of instant images, photographer Ivan Boiko moves deliberately against the current. He shoots on film and experiments with photogravure, liquid silver emulsion, watercolour paper and even sheets of copper — treating photography as a physical object rather than an image on a screen.

From Old Believers and Siberian Stories to landscapes increasingly moving towards abstraction, Boiko’s practice is defined by slowness, materiality and contemplation of nature. For him, a picture that has not been printed remains unfinished.

Read the full story via the link: https://artfocusnow.com/people/ivan-boiko-and-the-materiality-of-photography/

Images:
1 - Ivan Boiko. Old Believers. Courtesy of the artist
2 - Ivan Boiko. Siberian Stories. Courtesy of the artist
3 - Ivan Boiko. Japanese Paper. Courtesy of the artist

04/09/2026

As audiences grow weary of information overload and increasingly elaborate spectacles, a quiet counter-movement is taking shape in Russian contemporary art.

This article explores how artists including Anna Komarova, Igor Samolet and Leonid Kostin are reinventing minimalism—often by grafting it onto ideas and aesthetic traditions that appear fundamentally at odds with it. The result is not impoverishment but concentration: the less there is, the more precise—and ultimately the more powerful—the work becomes.

Read the full story via the link: https://artfocusnow.com/discoveries/compelled-minimalism/

Images:
1 - Leonid Kostin. SPAS. Exhibition view. Moscow, 2026. Photo by Evgenia Senina. Courtesy of Futuro Gallery
2 - Igor Samolet. Choice. Exhibition view. Moscow, 2025. Courtesy of XL Gallery
3 - Anna Komarova. Quiet Hour. Exhibition view. Moscow, 2026. Courtesy of XL Gallery

03/09/2026

Evgeny Antufiev’s two concurrent exhibitions in Italy place his work in dialogue with Giorgio Morandi across two spaces closely connected to the Italian painter.

Light Casts Shadow at Casa Morandi in Bologna and Frozen Light at Casa Museo Morandi in Grizzana bring together bronze, mosaics and found objects. Rather than seeking easy parallels, the exhibitions explore “incompatibility, distance, and the very impossibility of reconciliation”, while reflecting on matter and presence, the visible and invisible, time and memory.

Both exhibitions are on view until 13 September 2026.

Read the full story via the link: https://artfocusnow.com/news/the-serpent-among-the-shadows/

Images:
1 - Evgeny Antufiev. Untitled, 2026. Photo by Carlo Favero. Courtesy of the artist, z2o Sara Zanin Gallery and Emalin Gallery
2 - Evgeny Antufiev. Frozen Light. Exhibition view. Grizzana, 2026. Casa Museo Morandi. Ela Bialkowska. Courtesy of the artist, z2o Sara Zanin Gallery and Emalin Gallery
3 - Evgeny Antufiev. Frozen Light. Exhibition view. Grizzana, 2026. Casa Museo Morandi. Courtesy of the artist, z2o Sara Zanin Gallery and Emalin Gallery

01/09/2026

Mihail Chemiakin’s ‘My Life: Before Exile’ is far from a standard memoir. The newly published English edition is a 630-page “archaeological excavation of a lost world”, tracing the artist’s first twenty-eight years.

Accompanied by 149 illustrations, the memoir also serves as a remarkable primary source for the history of 1960s Soviet nonconformist art—capturing the people, communities and experiences that shaped Chemiakin’s creative and spiritual journey.

Read the full review via the link: https://artfocusnow.com/news/chemiakin-on-himself-a-soviet-dissidents-memoir-excavates-a-lost-world/

Images: Mihail Chemiakin. My Life: Before Exile. Book illustrations. Courtesy of the artist and Apollon Books

28/08/2026

On the roof of Moscow’s shiny new Zilart Museum, Alexander Brodsky’s modest plywood-and-felt-paper structure stands in open conflict with the copper-gleaming grandeur around it.

Shelter of the Innocents is part refuge, part labyrinth: tiny rooms and nooks contain sleeping berths, a stove, books, a coffee maker and a portrait of Hemingway, accompanied by the thunderous sound of the Atlantic Ocean. Drawing on a mode of existence tested throughout the Soviet era, Brodsky proposes “inner emigration” — quite literally, a shelter where time has stopped.

Read the full story via the link: https://artfocusnow.com/news/shelter-of-the-innocents-alexander-brodskys-defiant-refuge/

Images: Alexander Brodsky. Shelter of the Innocents. Installation view. Moscow, 2026. Courtesy of Zilart Museum

26/08/2026

From Soviet-era whitewashing to contemporary reflections on censorship and memory, layers have become both a visual device and a conceptual strategy for generations of Russian artists.

This survey traces the use of the palimpsest from Ilya and Emilia Kabakov to Vladimir Potapov, Slava Nesterov, Yana Serobabina and Sasha Kupriyanov. Through layering, concealment and appropriation, their works explore memory, mediatisation and the ways in which the past continues to surface in the present.

Using seemingly simple means, these artists create works of remarkable visual and conceptual depth.

Read the full story via the link: https://artfocusnow.com/discoveries/layered-art-in-todays-russia/

Images:

1 - Vladimir Potapov. Adzhеrом. Type: Settlement. Status: Residential. Courtesy of Zverevsky Centre for Liberal Arts
2 - Sasha Kupriyanov. The Most Normal Person in the World. Exhibition view. Moscow, 2026. Courtesy of szena gallery
3 - Yana Serobabina. The End, 2026. Courtesy of Ob'edinenie (Gathering)

Address

Saint Petersburg

Website

https://artfocusnow.com/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Art Focus Now posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Art Focus Now: