Regional development of contemporary art in Russia: global contexts and local projects

The problem authors focus on in this paper is the development of contemporary art in the regions of the Russian Federation in the context of the "rules of the game" set up by global projects and institutions in the realm of contemporary culture with its expectations of growing popularity and interest among professionals and general public. Special attention is paid to the ways how the National Centre for Contemporary Arts (NCCA) and other institutions practically operate in this area. The authors consider the so called "Siberian ironical conceptualism" as an instance of original regional aesthetics. The major proposal discussed in the article is that the problem it is focused on can be practically addressed through exhibition projects and curatorial solutions looking for encounters or dialogue (may be conflict or extension) between regional originality and global trends. In the first paragraph "Problems and practices or the regional contemporary art in Russia", the authors analyze key cases of regional projects and institutions: the National Centre for Contemporary Art and its regional branches, the project New Houses of Culture by the Centre of Contemporary Culture "Garage" and a unique project from Perm region - "Perm - the capital of culture". The rich history and scale of geographic distribution of branches in Tomsk, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Ekaterinburg, Vladikavkaz, Samara and Kaliningrad makes the National Centre for Contemporary Art of special interest for the authors. Different NCCA programs are described: exhibitions and festivals, art residencies, educational programs, research in the history and theory of contemporary art. Discussing the issue of original regional aesthetics, the authors consider the so called "Siberian ironical conceptualism" as an effort of constructing regional specifics of contemporary arts through artistic (re)search for Siberian identity. Special attention is paid to one of the remarkable headline exhibition projects "United States of Siberia" (curated by Slava Misin) that became a collection of artists and their works under the concept of "Siberian ironical conceptualism". Problem statement and cases analyzed require the authors to address agenda of curating in contemporary arts. Modern days functions and tasks in art curating allow us to consider curator as a co-creator of artworks. This approach was introduced in works by art theorist Boris Groys. The authors conclude that: 1) work of big scale cultural organizations can become a foundation for development of Russian regional contemporary culture; 2) however, there is still a doubt that original regional aesthetics can sustain without recognition at the international level; 3) this situation can be resolved in part in the course of exhibition projects and curatorial solutions looking for encounters or dialogue (may be conflict or extension) between regional originality and global trends.

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