Neoacademism in Saint Petersburg

Neoacademism in Saint Petersburg took flight in the beginning of the 1990’s under the intellectual guidance of Timur Novikov, the non-conformist Russian philosopher, artist and theoretician. While in the 80’s Novikov and his ”new artists” were primarily active in the fields of alternative rock, film and theatre, the “New Academy of Fine Arts” founded in 1989 took a turn and by rehabilitating the concept of beauty – under the spell of sensuality and hedonism – returned to the aesthetic values and historical forms of Classicism and Historicism. Nowadays Neoacademic artists continue analysing the concept of artistic beauty that, however, loosing its innocence, happened to serve totalitarianism quite often. The present exhibition, organised in cooperation with UVG art gallery (Ekaterinburg), gives an overview of this very remarkable branch of Russian art that is not exempt from paradoxes