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Victor Pinchuk Sticks to His Art

Bloomberg reports on the opening of Ukrainian steel magnate and art hound, Victor Pinchuk’s latest exhibition:

The steel tycoon opened the largest exhibition of Russian contemporary art in Ukraine’s post-Soviet history at the same time that the Kiev and Moscow governments were battling over natural gas sales. Shipments from Russia resumed yesterday after a price agreement was reached.

“Art doesn’t have boundaries,” Pinchuk said in an interview at his Kiev art center. “Ukraine is a place where art tendencies can intersect, coexist and enrich one another.” [ . . . ]

Pinchuk’s latest show, “21 Russia,” features works supplied by galleries of 21 Russian artists including Dubossarsky and Vinogradov, Alexei Kallima, the Blue Noses, AES+F, Valery Koshlyakov and Dmitry Gutov.

Alexander Soloviev, Pinchuk’s curator, said that while the display is a survey of leading artists during Vladimir Putin’s era, there is nothing political about it. “It’s about art for art’s sake,” said Soloviev.

Still, one work has a political tint. Sergey Shekhovtsov’s “Throne” is a three-meter-high Styrofoam installation of a czar’s throne. It premiered at XL Gallery in Moscow in March last year, on the day of elections that were denounced by pro- democracy campaigners for being under control of the Kremlin.

“Throne” is capped by mock video surveillance cameras, possibly a reference to the increased powers of security forces since Putin, a former KGB colonel, came to power.

The story, written by Bloomberg’s John Varoli, goes on to discuss Pinchuk’s show of photographs by Sam Taylor-Wood and Pinchuk’s relationship with Jay Jopling. But the world class art buyer set some stringent ground rules for Varoli: