Opening a gallery in London is an ambitious decision, bordering on recklessness , –
says Igor Markin, collector and founder of the first private museum of contemporary art, ART4 Museum in Moscow. This is exactly the kind of recklessness he has realised together with Liza Bobkova, artist and curator of the gallery.
In London there is a rule of three Ls: location, location, location! That’s why the co-founders of ART4 Gallery carefully chose a site for several months. In the end, they chose Cromwell Place in South Kensington. Cromwell Place brings together galleries, dealers, collectors and art professionals. The advantage is that the gallery gets workspace and can use the showrooms from time to time depending on its internal plan.
First exhibition “Brink” features the artist Dima Filippov’s graphics balancing on the edge of landscape and abstraction. His works capture the same landscape – the space of “the world”, which remotely resembles fragments of travelling and images of the artist’s native places (Gornyak, Altai Territory).
“When I return home, more than anything I value the fading away of one control and the appearance of another. Other vital rhythms come to the fore, a place where things can remain incompletely defined. In depicting landscapes, I do not focus on the details. I want to show that which never comes into the frame. Those events that remain beyond its perimeter represent the potential for meeting.,” says Dima Filippov about his work.
The works in the “Brink” exhibition are not based on photographs or preliminary sketches. Filippov’s “familiar” landscapes are ethereal spaces with a recognisable horizon that acts as a point of focus, drawing the viewer in and encouraging them to think about perspective, pattern and colour. Using the technique of painting landscapes, depicting elements of his past, the artist creates a world in which to reflect on his own journeys and find points of connection.
“A very pure, harmonious and perfect exhibition for which there are no questions. We had to start with just such a one. And I, as a collector with 25 years of experience, have no questions,” commented Igor Markin.
ART4 Gallery’s immediate plans are to show works by Liza Bobkova and Danila Polyakov, as well as to take part in fairs in Austria, USA, France and Spain. “Developing a gallery internationally is a very complex issue and a difficult path. A lot of properly working laws help, in this case it turns out to spend less time on bureaucratic processes. There are a lot of good local fairs here. The last one we visited was the London Art Fair, where there are about 150 galleries, if not more, and everything looks good. So, we will work, try to find extraordinary artists and organise significant exhibitions,” commented Igor Markin, co-founder of ART4 Gallery.
The exhibition is open until 28 January
