Opening of the Russian Paintings Exhibition «Russian Art from Private Collections: from Borovikovsky to Kabakov».
On 10 May 2012, New York's ABA Gallery presented the exhibition titled Russian Art from Private Collections: from Borovikovsky to Kabakov.
The exhibition has multiple works on display, including paintings from Mikhail Baryshnikov's and Vladimir Spivakov's collections. Chronologically, the exhibition begins with a portrait of Savva Yakovlev by Vlamidir Borovikovskiy and ends with the works by the 'generation of the sixties' like Oscar Rabin, Vladimir Yankylevsky, Eric Bulatov and Ilya Kabakov. The exhibition is mainly sponsored by Ulvi Kasimov, Head of IQ Group, an investment company, and Mikhail Shvydkoy, Special Representative of Russian President on International Cultural Cooperation.
The exhibition of Russian artists' works leaves a lasting impression, though its value can be called priceless given the complex circumstances surrounding cultural exchange between Russia and the USA during the last two years.
At the end of last July, an American court ruled that about twelve thousand books and fifty thousand rare documents kept in Schneerson's collection in Russia should be returned to Chabad-Lubavitch, a Jewish religious movement.
Subsequently, Russian cultural institutions, some large museums in particular, had to withdraw from exhibitions in the USA. In return, American museums made similar decisions. «This exhibition might not have had such a significance but for the cold cultural relations between Russian and American museums, libraries and archives», – Mr Shvydkoy, Special Representative of Russian President on International Cultural Cooperation, said. It was this cultural exchange void that drove Anatoly Bekkerman to arranging the exhibition.
The exhibition is exceptional in that it highlights a multitude of striking paintings by great artists. Needless to say, collecting Russian art is on the rise abroad.