The Gazprombank collection is the first corporate art collection purposefully set to represent contemporary Russian art from the 1990s to the present.
Whilst Russian classical, avant-garde and non-conformist art are widely represented in museums and private collections, catalogues and auction sales, the art of contemporary Russia is yet to emerge on the international art scene.
Profound social and economic changes of the early 1990s provoked an intense growth of avant-garde trends in the Russian art, the artists of this wave tried to find answers to the questions “where are we?”, “what are we?”, “where to move next?”. The collection consistently combines most representative works of this period in the Russian art history. It started with the acquisition of the works by the leading Russian artists, the pillars of the Russian art scene: Andrei Monastyrsky, Vadim Zakharov, Yuri Albert and others, key figures in the most important school of the 1990s - Moscow Conceptualism and 'Collective Actions' group as its key formation. At a later stage trying to present contemporary Russian art in its development and evolution, we started acquiring works of the next generation of artists – Olga Chernysheva, Sergey Bratkov, Anatoliy Osmolovsky, Victor Alimpiev. Now the collection comprises a large variety of works of the youngest generation, including video art by Taus Makhacheva, photographs by Sergey Sapozhnikov and an extensive and therefore very special series of documented performances by Elena Kovylina, Russia's celebrated performance artist.
With the purpose of preserving original ideas and conceptual integrity of the composite projects in the collection we endeavour to acquire them as a whole rather than buying individual pieces.
Apart from buying works that are already represented in the local and international artistic context, Gazprombank commisions new works, created specially for the collection.
Currently the collection embraces the widest variety of media, genres and techniques: paintings, graphics, photography, sculpture, installations, objects, documentation of performances, video art and artist’s books – in total over 1000 inventories by 84 artists .
In spite of the collection’s young age many works have already been presented at leading Russian and international exhibitions and art-forums, such as Architectural Biennale in Venice (2012), Venice Biennale of Contemporary Crt (2013), Liverpool Biennale (2012), Thessaloniki Biennale (2017), Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (2013, 2017), Manifesta (2018). Some works were exhibited at the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, New Tretyakov Gallery as well as at regional museums and art spaces (Nizhniy Novgorod, Yekaterinburg, Kazan etc).
The collection's first international public display happened in 2013 in one of the world's leading museum, the Albertina in Vienna. That show of Russian Russian contemporary art preceded a major exhibition of the Russian avant-garde at the museum in 2016. In the six weeks of its work the Gazprombank collection exhibition attracted more than 120,000 visitors.
The exhibition “Making Our Stay in the City Visibly and Invisibly” (curated by Andrei Parshikov) at The National Centre for Contemporary Arts in Moscow (June-July 2015) became the first presentation of the collection in Russia.
Active management of the collection, involvement in international publishing projects and associations, producing and displaying works of the collection's artists in Moscow, across Russia and at international forums are all aimed at enhancing visibility and recognition of the contemporary Russian art. We are sure that contemporary Russian artists should and hope they will find their place in the international framework of references. 

"A Celebration of Corporate Art Programmes Worldwide". Published by: Wapping Arts Trust, supported by: Bonhams, United Kingdom, 2014, p.27.

"Global Corporate Collections". Published by: Deutsche Standards EDITIONEN GmBH, Germany, 2015, p. 239.

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