There should be no more complaints about the lack of contemporary Russian art on show in London. Numerous newspaper articles with titles like ‘The Russians are Coming’ marked the almost simultaneous opening in spring 2009 of two galleries specializing in Russian and Eastern European art. The non-profit gallery Calvert22 is now hosting its third exhibition, entitled Reimagining October. The exhibition provokes a discourse on the modern Russia, which is in the process of redefining itself within its post-Soviet history. The chosen video pieces cover issues of post-Soviet legacy and particularly the devastated economy and urgent search for self-identity in Estonia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, as well as in modern Russia. English viewers are able to familiarize themselves with such influential artists as Victor Alimpiev, Dmitry Gutov, Ksenia Peretrukhina, Factory of Found Clothes team and others. The overall mood of nostalgia and finding oneself in the new Russia of growing capitalism, which has replaced the previous socialist utopias, fills the gallery space.

Orel Art Paris has now decided to open a branch in London. Although a commercial gallery, it is a friendly place to visit and several educational talks and reading groups are planned to be organized by the staff. Currently on display is Letter from the Island: Sergei Serp, Evgeny Yufit, and Vladimir Kustov. These three artists initiated an extraordinary movement, “Necrorealism”, which emerged in 1980s Soviet Russia. When the Soviet regime started to crack, a group of people in Leningrad gathered to revalue such fundamental notions as life, death and social behavior through absurdist, often unplanned performances and later through films and paintings. They were not an underground opposition movement and claimed to be disinterested in politics. Rather, they preoccupied themselves with issues of biological existence, “naked” and alternative forms of life, and techniques of hybridization and mutation in an attempt to cross the human/nonhuman divide. These artists are still active today, and on show at Orel Art is their more recent work as well as their most famous Necrorealist films and performances.

ALISA OLEVA