The publication “Masters of Siberia” launched an online encyclopedia about the 35-year history of contemporary art in Krasnoyarsk

The online publication about contemporary culture of Siberian cities “Masters of Siberia” has launched a special project “Krasnoyarsk-25” – an online encyclopedia dedicated to contemporary art in Krasnoyarsk, with a focus on the history of the development of the artistic movement in the city over the past 35 years, from 1990 to 2025.

Krasnoyarsk today is one of the largest centers of contemporary art in Siberia. The Peace Square Museum Center operates here, one of the most important cultural institutions in Russia, the home of the Krasnoyarsk Museum Biennale, the first biennale of contemporary art in the country (held since 1995).

The SCAN FAIR contemporary art fair takes place here, bringing together artists from Siberia, the Urals and the Far East, and the SCAN AWARDS is awarded, recognizing the best projects and achievements among artists from these regions. Laboratories and markets are held here, and young artists of Krasnoyarsk actively initiate their own projects and collaborate with cultural institutions, both official and self-organized, throughout Siberia.

But where did it all start? Why did it happen here? In the “Krasnoyarsk-35” project, one can trace the formation and development of contemporary art in Krasnoyarsk, from the first Soviet-era experimenters discovering conceptual art, to current collective exhibitions and actively functioning institutions.

The author of the project was Alexandra Semenova-Sitnikova, a researcher at the Peace Square Museum Center and an associate professor at the Department of Art History and Cultural Studies at the Siberian Federal University.

On the Krasnoyarsk-35 website you can find a detailed chronicle of all important projects, events and names in the field of contemporary art from 1990 to 2025. The story is divided into chapters by decade, from the 1990s to the 2020s. The site also features a gallery of key artworks, one (and sometimes more than one) for each year.

“It was important to strike some balance between the three categories. Official art presented in the professional academic environment of Krasnoyarsk; oppositional art that comes into confrontation with traditional artistic practices; and, finally, marginal, original art – works of artists who withdrew themselves from the struggle for recognition in the artistic community, locked themselves in their apartments and did mostly table work, sometimes presenting their works to a close circle of people,” explains the selection of works for the gallery Alexandra Semenova-Sitnikova, the author of the project.

All works in the gallery are provided with detailed comments, which outline the history of their creation and significance for the contemporary art of the city.