ARKA GALLERY OF CONTEMPORARY ART

Founder and director Vera Glazkova and art historian Marina Kulikova established the Arka Gallery of Contemporary Art in 1995. At that time the gallery business in Russia, and especially in the Russian Far East, was in its beginnings.

The studio’s first exhibition was of artist Sergey Simakov, one of the representatives of the unofficial art of Primorye. So, from the first exhibition the Arka’s style was determined: uniting artists working in contemporary art, from abstract paintings to photography, and from videos to performances. In 1997 the gallery settled into its own building in Vladivostok’s historical area and quickly gained popularity, becoming one of the city’s most attractive cultural centers.

Today it can be said that the Arka gallery is not just one of the first signs of the gallery business in the vast expanse of Siberia and the Russian Far East, but also a model of a modern gallery in Eastern Russia.

The gallery’s main purposes are to promote the philosophy and aesthetics of contemporary art, promote artists of the region, and widen international contacts for exhibitions. In recent years, the gallery has had regular contributions from talented Russian Far East painters and graphic designers such as: Veniamin Goncharenko, Aleksandr Pyrkov, Yuri Sobchenko, Vladimir Tsoy, Vladimir Pogrebnyak, Dzon Kudryavtsev; photographers such as Mikhail Pavin and Gleb Teleshov, performance and exhibition artist Katya Kandyba-Demidenko, and many, many others.

With its innovative concepts, stylistic exhibitions and events, the Arka is actively involved in shaping Vladivostok’s cultural environment, beneficially influencing the creative outlook of young artists in the Russian Far East.

The Arka Gallery is well known in Russia, and has organized exhibitions held in Moscow, St. Petersburg and cities throughout Russia and the world. From 1998 to the present, as part of international cultural cooperation, the gallery has held exhibitions of artists from France, Germany, Belgium, the US, South Korea, Japan, and China. Since 2000, the gallery has participated in many international festivals, including: Art Moscow, Art Forum Berlin, Art Miami, Art Vienna, Art Athens, DiVA (Paris), ARCOmadrid (Madrid), ART-PARIS (Paris), CIGE (Beijing), and others.

The living pulse of contemporary art beats in each new exhibition at the Arka, which is clearly felt here on the shores of the Zolotoy Rog.