One might say that the Moscow art season truly began yesterday: the Cosmoscow fair opened, and there will be much talk of it in the days ahead

One might say that the Moscow art season truly began yesterday: the Cosmoscow fair opened, and there will be much talk of it in the days ahead. I was fortunate enough to survey the year's achievements in contemporary art and the leading galleries during the Beluga morning mediation, by now a pleasant tradition, in the company of the art historian Mikhail Kamensky.

And while Kamensky, this year as the first head of Christie's Russia and the CIS, looked at the fair through the eyes of a collector and drew attention to the major collections on everyone's lips in fair season, those of Zoya Galeeva, Georgy Guryanov and the Mir centre, I tried in passing to notice the unobtrusive details.

And while others savoured the new cocktails of a premium vodka brand in the premium lounge, my notebook of modest observations was filling up with field research in the exhibition hall. One contrast in particular strikes the eye: while some galleries year after year reproduce the same hang of the same artists, in the hope of selling familiar names to seasoned lady buyers, others, younger or more organic, turn their small displays into a statement. It is of such statements that I should like to put in a word. For example, the Penn Lab gallery, which usually specialises in photography, surprised this year with a stand devoted to a solo project by Igor Elukov and Polina Timofeeva, "Fields of Fall", working in such a medium as the wreckage of spent rocket stages. Second, the modest, understated, somewhat detached project by Alexander Brodsky and the "One and a Half Rooms" museum, "Brodsky in a Cube", about the sky above our heads, on the sober RBC stand. Third, "RasPakovka": not the first appearance of the Pak family of collectors, this year with a very interesting architecture for the corner itself. The Leningraders were a delight: the Petersburg project "Parasites" managed to fit in a mad number of names, mad hatters and the most varied techniques. I cannot fail to praise my acquaintances, the "Shift" gallery, which once again combines classics of unofficial art with newcomers, the very restrained style of the Astra gallery, and the Fabula gallery, which as usual sets the architectural and design view of stand decoration for a season ahead. More of my impressions in the following posts.