Russian Invasion

MIAMI—The Russians are coming! To Art Basel Miami Beach, that is. “Russia Miami 2007,” a non-selling exhibition of about two dozen examples of Russian contemporary art, is on view in the Collins Building, in the city’s Design District, from December 3 to 10.

The show, curated by the Hermitage Museum’s Julie Sylvester, features Sergey Bratkov's large, photographic portraits on a 62-foot-long wall; an installation by Sergei Bugaev, known as Africa, that combines Soviet-era recycled objects and early 20th-century hand-painted sleighs; and, on the ceiling of the entrance, Dmitry Bulnygin’s 2006 video of a female tennis player shot from underneath her skirt.

The show has some powerful backers. Nicolas Iljine, the Guggenheim's director of corporate development for Europe and the Middle East, came up with the concept and is producing the event, in a
private capacity. “We want to introduce Russian contemporary art to an international audience,” he says, “and Miami is the main meeting place for the art world in North America.”

Financing is coming from RIGroup, an American real estate company with operations in Manhattan and the suburbs of Moscow. The firm is headed by Russian-born Janna Bullock, who over the past year has become a leader in Russia’s contemporary-art scene and now sits on the Guggenheim’s board. During Art Basel Miami Beach in 2006, when last-minute financial troubles plagued “Modus R,” the previous incarnation of “Russia Miami,” also organized by Iljine, Bullock covered the costs. In addition, she helped underwrite Matthew Barney’s visit to the Moscow Biennale in March and Dennis Hopper’s summer show at the Hermitage. “I sincerely believe in cross-cultural exchange between the U.S. and Russia,” she says. “We want to bring American artists to Russia, and Russian artists to America.”      

"Russian Invasion" comes to ARTINFO from the December 2007 issue of Art & Auction.