The culture of collecting contemporary art in Russia is still developing. Artists are becoming more numerous, new galleries are opening, and the number of fairs and exhibitions is growing. However, people willing not only to view but also to consistently collect contemporary art remain few. Meanwhile, the history of contemporary art cannot be imagined without private collections.
"X Files" brings together works created over the past six decades—from the masters of unofficial art of the 1960s to contemporary artists. They are united not by a common style, movement, or generation, but by a common principle of selection: an interest in art whose significance has not yet been exhausted by the present day.
A museum works with what has already become part of history. A private collector works with what is only just beginning to claim its place in history. A museum captures the established canon. A collector risks changing it. When purchasing a work, they acquire not the past, but the future. Each work in the collection is a hypothesis, a proposition about what will prove important years or decades from now. This is precisely why the right to make mistakes is not a drawback of a private collection, but a necessary condition. Without risk, there is no discovery.
Almost all works presented in the exhibition are available for purchase. This is the project's fundamental position. Art should not remain confined to a single collection. It lives, passing from hand to hand, entering new contexts, and becoming part of new stories.
The exhibition's main goal isn't to showcase a collection, but to demonstrate that art history isn't created solely by artists, curators, and museums. It's also created by collectors—people who are ready to make their choices even before time has confirmed them. Every significant collection once began with a single work.
The exhibition features works by 23 artists:
- Kirill Akulinichev
- Irina Nakhova
- Viktor Pivovarov
- Petr Dyakov
- Yuri Zlotnikov
- Lidiya Masterkova
- Valery Koshlyakov
- Tatyana Akhmetgalieva
- Alyosha (Aljoscha)
- Olga Tatarintseva
- Francisco Infante Arana
- Oleg Kulik
- Vladimir Kupriyanov
- Julo Sooster
- Andrey Syailev
- Vladimir Yankilevsky
- Timofey Radya
- Eduard Steinberg
- Vitaly Pushnitsky
- Valery Chtak
- Antonina Fatkhulina
- Oleg Tselkov
- Boris Sveshnikov
