Exhibition project "The Great Silk Road:
Yangtze / Volga / Danube"

This project is designed to show the wide audience the latest trends in contemporary art in Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and China. Speaking of this, we focus on the artistic process of the last 15 years, when noticeable changes occurred within the socio-political and cultural reality, which found expression in the field of visual arts. This project is the result of close observation of the art scene of 2000-2017 - a period when art, which was the radar of the political and social situation at the turn of the century, loses this function, yielding in the speed of reaction to the information flow of social networks.

The idea of globalization, which has taken over the world, has also given rise to some new topography in the current art field. Today, more attention of artists is directed to the experience of the present moment. This is an art that recognizes dangers and speaks openly about them. Artists no longer write manifestos, but prefer individual working methods. Under the current conditions, there is no underground - it’s no longer possible to become isolated in the ivory tower, saving dissident isolation. The function of art today is to change not society, but people. The art of pursuing dialogue,

The project organizers, following the methodology of the 17th-century European humanist Jan Amos Komensky, author of the famous encyclopedia “The World of Sensual Things in Pictures”, set the task for contemporary artists: to reflect the world of nature and public relations through their creative works in order to obtain diverse artistic revelations and points of view on the same topics. The project is an attempt to at least partially restore a holistic perception of the world around a person.

Artists are invited to reflect in their work 100 contemporary topics that are relevant to their work: 100 works are created by Russian artists, 100 topics are European, 100 topics are Chinese. The structure of the exposition of the exhibition and the art encyclopedia, in which the works of artists from Russia and the works of foreign authors are given on the same topic, provide, to a certain extent, the opportunity to compare creative approaches and get unusual creative dialogues.

The traveling exhibition “The Great Silk Road / Yangtze – Volga – Danube” includes 99 works by artists from Russia, China and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, grouped in equal shares on 33 themes.

Route sheet of the traveling exhibition:

• Harbin, China, Liu Mingxiu Museum of Russian Art (July 6-20);
• Saratov, S.H.M. named after A.N. Radishchev (August 8-September 3);
• Moscow, halls of the Russian Academy of Arts (September);
• Bratislava, European Center for the Visual Arts (October).

The full scope of an international exhibition research project:

300 works by contemporary artists of Russia, China and Central

and Eastern Europe will be featured in the trilingual art encyclopedia of the project.