“Art and Reality” Forum opened in the Presidential Library

25 November 2011 in the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library opened the first forum “Art and Reality”. Leading world art journalists, art critics and art historians will discuss the relations between the art critique and the modern art.

The topic of the first day was interconnection “Art - critic”. The attendees exchanged their views and disputed about the role of a critic in the modern art work and in the market development, discussed the issues of education of the future art critics.

The forum was opened by a member of the Supervisory Council Andrey Konchalovsky. According to the well-known stage director, one of the serious problems of the modern European art is the fact that the critique today creates a fashion, tendency which is imposed as the generally accepted artistic value. The critic becomes an advertiser of the product.

Andrey Konchalovsky also defined another problem: the fear of not being politically correct prevents the modern critic from doing his primordial work. That is why today it is very important to support those critics who are not afraid to resist total political correctness but teach to contemplate and help the new spectator to understand the beauty of the world, outlined the director of stage.

The addresses were followed by lively discussions. In particular, the discussion covered the concept of political correctness itself. Many questions were provoked by the presentation of the “Garage” educational project.

Among the speakers were: Marek Bartelik, President of the art critics Association AICA USA; Nicolas Kalinen, Curator of the Tate Modern; Ann Dumas, Curator of the London Royal Academy of Arts; Denis Coutagne, Curator in Chief of the Direction of Museums of France; Alexander Borvosky, Head of the Modern Trends Department of the Russian Museum; Maxim Kantor, painter and writer; etc.  

The initiator of the “Art and Reality” annual forum is the Petr Konchalovsky Foundation under the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation. The interaction between the mass media and art is discussed internationally for the first time.

In the context of the three-day conference will be held the international contest in the field of treatment of modern problems of art. The winners will be announced on 27 November, the last day of the forum.