VIVARTE festivals pictured

This year brings a milestone date for Olga Sviblova, the founder and director of the renowned Multimedia Art Museum Moscow, Meritorious Worker of Arts, and a member of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Arts. In 1996, when the museum was founded, it became the first Russian art institution that operated according to international standards. Today, MAMM is known and loved both in Russia and worldwide, with its founder named among the top 100 most famous art world personalities. The museum, like its director, doesn’t like to dwell on the past: its focus remains on the outlook for the future and on making new plans.

The U-Art Foundation establishes a grant for Tretyakov Gallery scholars In early 2017, the U-ART Foundation announced the launch of an endowment program for the State Tretyakov Gallery art researchers. The new source of funding will make possible doing research at out-of-country museums, archives, universities, and other institutions

Many books are written about Moscow. Thousands of poems and songs are dedicated to the city. Countless images of it can be found in graphic arts and cinematography. The capital has been transforming from one era to another. Like a human being, the city changed its temper and moods with age, however, at all times it maintained its unique atmosphere. Every person, be it a Muscovite or a visitor, had, has and will have his or her own Moscow: favorite places and routes, warm memories and nostalgic feelings.

Innovation is the only national award in contemporary art; the title implies looking into the future, being open, being ready to change oneself and the world. Trendy in the Russia of the early 2000s, the word has lost much of its relevance by now. And similarly, the format of a formerly progressive award has become stale; that was shown by the crisis it went through in 2016 when the jury broke up over some differences and the top prize wasn’t awarded.

Back at the time when Vivarte, a chamber music festival, announced its first programs at the Tretyakov Gallery it was called a direct competitor — and even an epigone — of the famous Svyatoslav Richter’s December Nights. Held at the Pushkin Museum, the latter combined music and painting too. However, Vivarte’s organizers carried out their project to a high standard proving the new festival had its own face which, judging by the huge interest it aroused, would soon be recognizable all too well.