Lera Shvets
The Stella Art Foundation is the largest Russian foundation supporting contemporary art and for the past three years it has been the national commissioner of the Russian pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale. The gallery was launched in the early 2000s, when the art market as such did not exist in Russia. The first exhibition exhibited the group show of pop-art icons of the XX century: Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Tom Wesselmann. Afterwards, Stella Kesaeva, the president of the Foundation and the creative director of the gallery, decided to start promoting Russian artists. One should go to the gallery to get acquainted with the work of both influential well-known and emerging contemporary artists. The space of the gallery regularly holds art exhibitions, and every two months hosts meetings called "Evenings on Skaryatinsky", inviting critics, writers and musicians to debate about the problems of contemporary art in Russia. Also, one of the main projects of the Foundation today is the formation of a collection which is to be the base for the future Museum of Contemporary Art.
