MOSCOW, March 8 (UPI) -- The Russian Culture Ministry has set up a steering committee to organize the first Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art for next year.
Several locations for the show, to run from Jan. 15 to March 15, 2005, are being considered, including the former Lenin Museum near Red Square, the Museum of Architecture, and the Moscow Museum of Contemporary Art, The Art Newspaper reported Monday.
Yevgeny Zyablov, head of Russia's largest exhibition company, ROSIZO, is expected to be named director of the project.
Since the Russians have no experience in organizing a contemporary art exhibit on this scale, they have contracted several foreign curators to help set up the biennale. They include Robert Storr, former curator of contemporary art at New York's Museum of Modern Art and Hans Ulrich Obrist, curator of contemporary art at the Musee d'Art Moderne in Paris.
The development is seen as a reflection of Russia's determination to catch up with other countries in exhibiting cutting edge international art, once shunned as degenerate by the former Communist regime that relegated its own holdings of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art to museum storage.
