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Art Focus Now is an online magazine and newsletter created by journalists, critics and researchers.

We focus on what is now in contemporary art in Eastern Europe, including Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltics; the Caucasus and Central Asia.

14/08/2026

In July, an abandoned Soviet bomb shelter beneath Natalia Kondratova's studio in Moscow became an exhibition space—and part of the artwork itself.

Labyrinth of Minotaur brought together works from the past five years, from large semi-abstract paintings to prints and etchings. Installed across walls, metal gratings and bunk beds, the works respond directly to the shelter’s claustrophobic architecture: as Kondratova puts it, “the shelter itself became a co-author”.

With recurring images of Minotaurs, monsters, and distorted bodies the exhibition explores violence, fear and the fragility of human nature, while revealing echoes of El Greco, Chaim Soutine, Baroque imagery and Francisco Goya’s anti-war prints.

Read the full story via the link: https://artfocusnow.com/news/contemporary-art-in-a-bomb-shelter-in-moscow/

Images:

1- Natalia Kondratova. Dream of the Minotaur. We’ll Never Know What the Monster is Dreaming About, 2024. Courtesy of the artist
2 - Natalia Kondratova. Grey Notebooks of War, 2022–2026. Courtesy of the artist
3 - Natalia Kondratova. They Continued to Dance, 2024. Courtesy of the artist

13/08/2026

From Georgia to Serbia, a new generation of independent, community-driven, migrant art spaces is emerging—offering creative refuge while reinventing the institutions that support artists in exile.

This Discoveries feature takes a closer look at Rubezh in Tbilisi and KP Radionica in Belgrade —from exhibitions, performances and artist talks to film screenings and educational programmes.

Rubezh describes itself as a “diaspora” defined not ethnically, but through relationships within its artistic community, while KP Radionica operates through a predominantly horizontal structure.

Read the full story via the link: https://artfocusnow.com/discoveries/beyond-the-frontier-the-evolution-of-migrant-art-spaces-in-georgia-and-serbia/

Images:
1 - Kevin-Ademola Sangisanya. Medication to Die. IV International Instant Exhibition of Émigré Art RUBEZH: DEATH. Exhibition view. Tbilisi, 2026. Courtesy of Rubezh
2 - Ne Ti Rusi. Exhibition view. Belgrade, 2026. Courtesy of KP Radionica
3 - Ne Ti Rusi. Exhibition view. Belgrade, 2026. Courtesy of KP Radionica

11/08/2026

An “abyss of garishness and taste” — this striking phrase captures the world of Fyodor Shekhtel, where popular spectacle, refined craftsmanship and architectural fantasy became inseparable.

Fyodor Shekhtel: Dreams of Russian Art Nouveau at the Shchusev Museum of Architecture presents the celebrated architect less as an architect than as a director and visual artist. Bringing together works from numerous museums and private collections, the exhibition focuses on his early years and final Soviet decade, revealing a creator of scenic utopias whose practice moved between theatre, ephemeral architecture, ornament, interiors and monumental design.

Read the full story via the link: https://artfocusnow.com/news/an-abyss-of-garishness-and-taste/

Images:

1 - Fyodor Shekhtel: Dreams of Russian Art Nouveau. Exhibition view. Moscow, 2026. Courtesy of Shchusev Museum of Architecture
2 - Fyodor Shekhtel. Album Cover for 'Vesna-Krasna', 1883. From the collection of Shchusev Museum of Architecture. Courtesy of Shchusev Museum of Architecture
3 - Fyodor Shekhtel. Interior design sketch for the study in the A. V. and S. V. Morozov Estate, 1895–1900. From the collection of Shchusev Museum of Architecture. Courtesy of Shchusev Museum of Architecture

10/08/2026

Between 1965 and 1991, book illustration became an unexpected space for artistic freedom in Soviet Kazakhstan. While painting was more closely bound by the political demands, publishing allowed artists greater room for formal experimentation—and helped shape a distinctly Kazakh national artistic language.

The Book – The Medium, now on view at Aspan Gallery in Almaty, explores this “golden age of Soviet Kazakh book illustration” through works on paper and rare books from ten private collections. The exhibition is the first chapter of curator Alen Li’s ambitious four-part research project into the history of Kazakhstan’s print culture—a project expected to unfold over the next five to six years.

Read the full story via the link: https://artfocusnow.com/news/turning-the-page-the-golden-age-of-kazakh-book-illustration/

Images: The Book – The Medium. Exhibition view. Almaty, 2026. Courtesy of Aspan Gallery

07/08/2026

Before Lev Bakst, Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, and Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin became defining figures of modern Russian art, they were part of an educational experiment that challenged the conventions of artistic training. Today, the Museum of Russian Impressionism revisits the remarkable legacy of Elizaveta Zvantseva’s private art school.

This exhibition explores how Zvantseva brought together visionary teachers, creating an environment of creative freedom that shaped an entire generation of artists. More than a story about a forgotten school, it reveals a pivotal chapter in the history of Russian art.

🔗 Read the full story via the link: https://artfocusnow.com/news/elizaveta-zvantsevas-crucible-of-modernity/

Images:

1️⃣ Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin. Fektya, 1916. Courtesy of Novgorod State Museum-Reserve
2️⃣ Sofya Dymschitz-Tolstaya. Decorative Still Life, 1911. Courtesy of the Omsk Regional Museum of Fine Arts named after M. A. Vrubel
3️⃣ Zvantseva School. Laboratory of Modernism. Exhibition view. Moscow, 2026. Courtesy of Museum of Russian Impressionism

05/08/2026

Sandro Breus is not interested in events, but the emotions they leave behind. Drawing on documentary photography, personal memory and historical observation, his monumental works transform fleeting moments into quiet, contemplative images that resist certainty and invite reflection.

In this artist profile, Varvara Iakovleva explores Breus' distinctive visual language, where documentation becomes poetry and the ordinary acquires an enduring emotional resonance.

🔗 Read the full profile in the People section via the link: https://artfocusnow.com/people/sandro-breus-monumental-emotion-and-the-poetics-of-documentation/

Images:

1️⃣ Sandro Breus. Alive and the dead 2, 2025. Courtesy of the artist
2️⃣ Sandro Breus. The Spirit (Strolling through Chicago), 2023. Courtesy of the artist
3️⃣ Sandro Breus. Cain’s Dream, 2025. Courtesy of the artist

03/08/2026

Exploring a lived experience through textiles, ceramics, wood, and brass.

Moscow-based multidisciplinary artist Lana Morozova lingers between universal themes like love and death, memory and erasure, using unique material combinations and nodding to Internet culture on occasion. Meet Lana and her art in our latest reel!

Born in Yelabuga in 1990, Lana Morozova graduated from the Rodchenko School of Photography and Multimedia. Drawing on memories of childhood, mysticism and emotional experience, her practice transforms deeply personal narratives into evocative works shaped by intuition and touch. She has held solo exhibitions at Triumph Gallery, Terminal A and Art.Ru, and has participated in residencies at the Garage Museum Workshops and Terminal A.

01/08/2026

Archives have power to change the way we look at cultural history, recovering what was lost or hidden. The Woman Artist’s Book: Tattooed with Emptiness, on view at the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, explores the many roles women played in literary and intellectual life at the turn of the twentieth century—as writers, publishers, editors, translators and organisers of cultural initiatives.

Through books, periodicals, photographs, manuscripts and other archival materials, the exhibition offers a closer look at the networks and collaborations that shaped the cultural landscape of the period. Rather than focusing on individual biographies, it traces the broader contexts in which women's contributions were made and preserved.

🔗Read the full story via the link: https://artfocusnow.com/news/women-beyond-the-page-at-the-garage/

Images: The Woman Artist’s Book: Tattooed with Emptiness. Exhibition view. Moscow, 2026. Photo by Daniil Annenkov. Courtesy of Garage Museum of Contemporary Art

29/07/2026

When the world outside descends into chaos, imagination can become its own form of refuge. In Delirium at Boston’s Calderwood Pavilion, director Igor Golyak reimagines Eugène Ionesco’s Frenzy for Two as a visually rich meditation on love, fear and the fragile worlds we create to protect ourselves from reality.

Blending surreal humour, dreamlike stagecraft and emotional intimacy, the production transforms the Theatre of the Absurd into an experience that feels strikingly contemporary. Rather than focusing on external conflict, the performance invites audiences into the inner landscapes of its characters, where imagination becomes both a shelter and a force of transformation.

Read the full story via the link: https://artfocusnow.com/news/the-protective-shell-of-imagination-delirium-at-the-calderwood-pavilion/

Images: Delirium. Directed by Igor Golyak. Based on Eugene Ionesco's play ‘Frenzy for Two, or More’. Andrey Burkovskiy (Him) and Chulpan Khamatova (Her). Arlekin! production. Photo by Olga Maturana. Courtesy of Arlekin!

27/07/2026

Can reading medieval philosophy become an artistic practice?

In Moscow, artist Georgy Ostretsov has brought together a growing community of artists who meet twice a week to read texts by early Christian thinkers and medieval philosophers, discuss ideas and share their work with one another. Our recent Discoveries feature explores how the Philosophical Club has evolved into an unlikely creative community, culminating in its third exhibition, Prothokletos.

Read the full story via the link: https://artfocusnow.com/discoveries/moscows-philosophical-club-unites-artists-through-medieval-texts/

Images:

1 - Prothoklethos. Exhibition view. Moscow, 2026. Photo courtesy of Georgy Ostretsov
2 - Nestor Povarnin. Avefiktos, 2025. Photo courtesy of the artist
3 - Pavel Berzheminskiy. Untitled. Photo courtesy of the artist

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