The exhibition “Great Victory: 80 Years of Courage and Memory” has opened at the Record Culture Center.
Artists Vladimir Velichko, Alexander Kraev, Valery Krylatov, Alexander Kornilov, Inessa Safronova, Vyacheslav Grachev, Alexey Chernigin, Vladimir Semikletov and others have contributed their works to the exhibition.

The exhibition creates a space for communication and reflection, where everyone can ask themselves questions about patriotism, the price of peace and what lessons we can learn from our past. “After 80 years, we will once again feel the joy of Victory, preserving the memory of the courage and sacrifices of that war,” said Karina Lukyanova, head of the exhibition department of the Record cultural center.

The exhibition features works that convey moments of battles, the hardships of life at the front and in the rear. These sketches, made in various techniques, reveal the inner world of a person, his fears and dreams, hopes and worries. It was important for the artists to capture not only the external plot, but also deep emotions – the pain of loss, confusion, the joy of Victory and long-awaited peace.

The authors include artists from the DPR, LPR, Zaporozhye, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kursk, Minsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Ufa  and Yalta.

The honorary guest of the exhibition opening was the Director of the Information and Press Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Vladimirovna Zakharova. In her speech, she addressed the audience with profound words of memory, support, and respect for the heroes of the past and present. Her speech became an important accent of the entire ceremony, recalling the great power of cultural heritage and civic responsibility.

“Art is not just an expression of feelings,” Maria Vladimirovna emphasized. “It is a form of action, a field of spiritual resistance, which is needed today more than ever. Everyone is in their place. Will we be able to defend this? Or will we believe that someone will do it for us? Without our participation, nothing will happen, including on this artistic front. And this is also a front where we need to do, do, and do. After all, generations are coming who will not have a direct connection with the front-line soldiers, who will not hear about the war first-hand…” These words sounded like a challenge to indifference and as a reminder: responsibility for memory is not only the business of museums and textbooks, it is our common choice – to remember, to tell, to create.

The exhibition “Autumn Vernissage – 2024” was held at the NGHM | Art of the 20th century from September 19 to November 4, 2024
I presented my new work “Brothers” on it, oil on canvas 90x160cm 2023

The confrontation between brothers is an ancient biblical story. Born as a symbol of the unity of all humanity, Cain and Abel in reality began to personify the most fierce and irreconcilable enmity, a split in society. Brothers grow up in the same family, raised and educated in the same cultural tradition, using the same examples. They are similar in appearance, so much so that they are always confused. But here they are standing in front of each other, preparing for a fight. Both are strong and desperately brave, both are confident in themselves and are not ready to compromise. Both go to the end and never give up. In this equality of strength and conviction to stand to the death is the insane drama and hopelessness of this fight. They know each other down to the smallest detail, down to the slightest eye movement, down to the twitch of a vein. It’s like shadowboxing, the enemy reads your thoughts, repeats your movements, anticipates your blows, and circles in the mirror dance of death. They stand, brother against brother, knowing that the battle will be terrible. They will put all their hatred and all their love, all their intelligence and all their passion, all their courage and all their despair into it. They will break, reveal, smear these familiar features, familiar for as long as you can remember. They will tear everything that connected them, scatter the memories, the eyes of the mother, the hands of the father. Cheekbones will crumble and walls will break, entire cities will be erased. They are facing each other. They look into these painfully dear, but now so alien eyes and see themselves reflected in them…

RakovGallery is a network of art galleries created by brothers Igor and Alexey Rakov in 2011. They opened their first gallery in Yekaterinburg as a space for realizing the creative ideas of contemporary Ural artists. Now RakovGallery operates in St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Moscow and Perm. The gallery specializes in the art of Russian contemporary artists.

Exhibition “90 years of the Union of Artists”. On November 30, an anniversary exhibition of works by artists of the Nizhny Novgorod region began working in the Exhibition Hall of the Moscow Union of Artists. It is dedicated to the 90th anniversary of the Nizhny Novgorod organization of the Union of Artists of Russia.
The genre of the group anniversary exhibition involves demonstrating the entire range of artistic works of various manners and styles, themes, subjects and images. Participation in the exhibition includes works from different years, which were shown at significant all-Russian and regional exhibitions in different years, that is, those that have passed the selection process of strict exhibition commissions, as well as new works created specifically for the current project.