CLASS. Topical Art. An educational program.

The programme was jointly developed by the State Centre for Contemporary Art and has been held in the Youth Centre since 2004. The programme includes lectures, round tables, seminars on art history and theory of the 20th century and its actual appearance in the 21st century, leading specialists from St. Petersburg, Moscow and abroad participate in the project. Another important element of the programme are master classes held by famous Russian and foreign masters, which usually take place in an informal atmosphere with artists lively discussing topics with students. Master classes are a creative laboratory, in which students along with the artist discover for themselves the nuts and bolts of creating artistic works.

2007-2008 Season.

Kaarina Kaikonnen
(Finland) My Mother's Ballet Slippers
(Installation)
1 November - 11 November 2007
Master class to be held on 2 November at 6 p.m.
The famous Finnish artist, a laureate of numerous prizes and participant of multiple international cultural forums, a lecturer at the Fine Arts Academy in Helsinki.
Kaarina Kaikonnen explores the problems of memory - the body's memory and cultural memory, impressed upon items, symbols and architectural forms. She works making use of old clothes and footwear, creating art and installations from material that is all too human - from ingenious 'insects', made from slippers, to large scale 'ships', 'staircases', 'cathedrals' and 'landscapes', built of old coats and shirts. They live their own lives beyond our control - 'beetles' and 'flies' stalk through the gallery, shirts and coats flutter in the wind. However, viewers do not abandon the idea that these perishable creations are in their own way durable and perhaps even, eternal.

Zlata Ponirovskaya
Clinic
(Cybernetic objects, installation)
31 January - 10 February 2008
One of the most promising and popular Moscow artists of the new generations, Ponirovskaya creates cybernetic toys, robot-chimeras, preprogrammed, charming freaks, in which you might be able to recognize yourself, should you desire. Based on the principle of 'like healing like', the artist has placed them in a 'clinic' - a special artificial environment where humane 'doctors' and viewers carry out various manipulations on the sufferers, possibly, curative manipulations. The essence of the project - eternal, throughout time and circumstances we ask the question, who am I? Am I this? And what will happen to me? No answer.

Oleg Artushkov
Childhood of the Gods
(Interactive audio-installation, photo light boxes)
28 February - 9 March 2008
Oleg Artushkov is one of the most promising photographic artists in St. Petersburg, and a winner of the prize Photographic Fashion and Style. With invariable perfectionism he combines the professional approach of glamour shoots with a deeply felt tradition of classical art.
The project Childhood of the Gods studies the interactions between highly classical traditions, glamour and kitsch. The result is dogmatic - the difference is simply context. Burgher German statuettes from the totalitarian era made from porcelain and moving kewpie dolls, when in close-up, turn into the forms of threatening pagan gods. The "gods" are represented on large, luminous panels, and strive to take over the entire space of the exhibition hall. Size does make a difference. A blast from one of Wagner's symphonies resounds when a viewer touches the one of the statuettes.

Marina (Manya) Alexeeva
Black Squirrel
(Painting)
28 March - 6 April 2008
Marina (Manya) Alexeeva is one of the key people involved in the St. Petersburg art scene, not only a famous artist, but also the owner of a non-commercial gallery Selskaya Zhizn (Village Life), and the publisher of a journal by the same name.
The themes of privacy, intimacy, femininity, and the bucolic and pastoral life are for her a constant part of her artistic programme. Privacy as a profession, credo and lifestyle, do not mean serenity and peace. Life in Marina Alexeeva's black and white pictures is like a good drama with a tragic ending. These large canvases depict actuality like the headings from a diary, showing everything that is dear: fragments from pictures, portraits of friends, instruments, pet animals and garden plants. Combining the traditions of folk art and positivistic science, the artist creates her own chamber of secrets, a unique memorial to one's personal life.

Lee Bo Suk
(For the Korean Culture Festival Traditions and Modernity)
10-20 April 2008
Chairperson of the International Association of 21st Century Artists, Seoul. A member of the Korean Fine Art Association, she graduated from Seoul University with a major in fine arts and the Repin Institute. She has run numerous personal exhibitions. She is a painter and photographer. She has participated in the Venetian Biannual and ARCO (Spain). Her paintings combine the use of traditional Korean painting and abstractionism.