"The Hermitage 20/21 project's goal is to collect, exhibit and study art of the 20th-21st centuries. We want to create a collection of works that will become history tomorrow. Actual art can be called a mirror of modern culture that reflects all of us. Therefore, the Hermitage 20/21 is addressed to those people who want to be up to date, for both amateurs and professionals, savvy connoisseurs and the youngest viewers".

M. Piotrovsky,
Director of the State Hermitage

The Hermitage 20/21 project was launched in 2007. Exhibitions America Today (2007), Chuck Close. Seven Portraits (2008), Timur's Space: Petersburg - New York. To the 50th anniversary of Timur Novikov (2008), Boris Smelov: Retrospective(2009), Wim Delvoye. D11 (2009),  Newspeak. British Art Now (2009) created within the project's framework became remarkable events in Petersburg's cultural life and drew the attention of both mass media and general public. About 500 thousand people attended exhibitions.

In summer 2010 within the project's framework works by modern artists Anish Kapoor and Antony Gormley, the best in Great Britain and the world's most famous sculptors, are exhibited at the Hermitage. The Printer's Mistake exhibition features prints by Ilya and Emilia Kabakovs that are donated by authors to the museum.

Important part of the Hermitage's activity in the field of modern art is represented by educational programs that are intended to demonstrate the details of modern art process such as meetings with artists (Ch. Close, A. Tsviyanovich, T. Farmer) and supervisors (N. Rosental, A. Ippolitov, D. Ozerkov), round tables and master classes, thematic competitions among Petersburg's young artists.'

The project's major areas of activity remain unchanged: the organization of innovative exhibition projects and the collecting activity in the field of modern art. The museum's collection includes a series of works by prominent figures of the 20th century: canvasses by H. Matisse and P. Picasso, K. Malevich and V. Kandinsky, works by L. Bourgeois and I. and E. Kabakovs. However, due to historical circumstances, the Hermitage does not have a representative collection of Western art of the second half of the 20th - early 21st centuries. The Hermitage 20/21 is meant to fill this gap.

The project is financed by the museum's own funds and sponsorship funds with the assistance of the London Society of Hermitage Friends.