DREAM CATCHERS / FOLLOWING THE DREAM 18+ Automatic translate

On March 17, ILONA-K artspace opens for the audience a large-scale exhibition project "DREAM CATCHERS / FOLLOWING A DREAM", which united works of art from two private collections. On the second floor of the Mercury Tower, works from the collection of the patron, president of the Stella Art Foundation Stella Kesaeva are presented, and on the 40th - businessman and international investor Vyacheslav Pivovarov.

The gallery space on the 40th floor displays iconic works by major Western artists of different generations, such as Hans Hartung, Ed Ruscha, Andy Warhol, Helen Bird, Monica Bonvicini, Alex Israel, Richard Prince and Damien Hirst, who form the core of the Vyacheslav Pivovarov collection.

Vyacheslav Pivovarov is an international businessman and investor, collector of contemporary art. Born in 1972, in 1990 he entered the State University of Management at the Faculty of World Economy, then continued his studies at the American University in Paris. After graduating with honors from both universities in 1995, he joined the Rothschild banking group in Paris. In 2002 he received his MBA from Stanford University.

Pivovarov’s financial education and professional career gave him the opportunity to explore collecting in terms of investment. Having studied the market for several years, Vyacheslav in two years independently assembled a complete collection. “Having missed out on buying art during the 2008 global financial crisis, I pulled the trigger in 2018,” he explains. However, investment potential is not the only criterion, and perhaps not the main one for Vyacheslav Pivovarov: “I choose art that inspires, energizes, presents conceptual value, and also brings aesthetic pleasure.”

The Mercury Tower exhibition hall, on the second floor, will house works from the Stella Art Foundation collection, many of which will be exhibited in public for the first time. This is one of the largest collections of works by famous Russian and foreign artists created over the past half century, as well as one of the highest quality and finely selected collections of contemporary art in Russia.  

The exhibition will feature works by artists who played a key role in the formation and development of Russian art at the turn of the XX-XXI centuries: Yuri Albert, Yuri Avvakumov, Andrey Abramov, Vagrich Bakhchanyan, Vadim Zakharov, Komar and Melamid, Alexander Kosolapov, Elena Elagina and Igor Makarevich, Andrey Monastyrsky, Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe, Boris Orlov, Ivan Chuikov and others.

Stella Kesaeva is a collector, philanthropist, president of the Stella Art Foundation, founded on her initiative in November 2003.

Stella Art Foundation forms an international collection of contemporary art, which today includes about one and a half thousand works of Russian and Western artists. The Russian part of the collection consists of works from 1970–2000, mostly belonging to the Moscow conceptual school (including Sots Art), as well as later trends that replaced it.

The Foundation has organized and demonstrated over a hundred exhibition projects in the field of contemporary culture and visual art in Russia and abroad. Stella Kesaeva was the Commissioner of the Russian Pavilion at the 54th, 55th and 56th Venice Biennials: in 2011, the project "Empty Zones" by Andrei Monastyrsky and the group "Collective Actions" (curated by Boris Groys) was presented to the public; 2013 - installation with performances "Danae" by Vadim Zakharov (curated by Udo Kittelman); in 2015 - the multimedia project "Green Pavilion" by Irina Nakhova (curated by Margarita Tupitsyna).

“I have long dreamed of seeing my collection in a single space in Russia,” Stella Kesaeva said on the eve of the exhibition. - This exhibition can be called a "touchstone" or a rehearsal before a larger show. Part of the collection has already been exhibited at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna in 2008, and at the Ca Rezzonico Venetian Palace Museum in 2009. Since then, the collection has grown noticeably, many works have not been shown publicly at all. And I am convinced that art only lives when the public sees it. It excites, makes you think and feel. And this is especially valuable now, at a time of prohibitions and all kinds of restrictions. "