About Cosmoscow / 2024

On October 24, the 12th International Contemporary Art Fair COSMOSCOW (@cosmoscowfair) opened its doors. I had planned to write a review right after the opening, but soon realized I needed to visit the fair once more. While at the vernissage my main focus was on acquaintances and conversations, my second visit was undertaken with the aim of conducting a kind of anthropological study of Russian popular artistic culture.

Facts: In 2024, the fair featured 91 (!) galleries and more than 300 artists. Over the course of four days, more than 50,000 people attended. This was one of those cases when, no matter the day or time of visit, “there wasn’t room for an apple to fall.” I only managed to listen to the lecture program while waiting in line for the coat check, where I spent about half an hour — enough to catch a few timely ideas from Marina Loshak and Sergey Limonov.

From the opening to the closing day, roughly one-tenth of the overall display changed (bearing in mind that some galleries held on to sold works until the end of the fair). This indicates a fairly high demand for Russian art and design objects. I can no longer bring myself to say that our art market is underdeveloped, or that there are few consumers and interested parties. That is simply not the case.

What did I see? A striking diversity of artistic formats and media used by Russian authors. The explosion of colors and techniques clearly signaled a positive outlook of visionary artists on surrounding reality (something that could not be said about last year’s display, which felt monochrome, lost, and “Perestroika-like”). Many gallerists also spoke about entering the Chinese market and made no mention of the European one — apparently, the dream of Europe has finally been left behind.

Perhaps it was the phenomenon of cultural code at work, but the booths and works presented at COSMOSCOW resonated with me far more than, for example, those at Art Dubai earlier this year. I also noted a sharp increase of interest in the medium of photography: more than 20 galleries fully or partially presented photographic works, which is 3–4 times more than last year. I now eagerly await the next, 13th edition of the fair, where White Rainbow Gallery @wr_photogallery will present its booth.