There has not been another major exhibition of this kind, of this subject, in the United States.

This comprehensive 25-year view is really a unique direction for the Museum and as far as exhibitions of Russian art are concerned.

An exhibition of contemporary Russian paintings at the Columbus Museum of Art offers a rare opportunity to view over 94 paintings by some of Russia's most important contemporary artists.

Concept originated in 1985 and to the present, so we've been working on it for five years.

We took three trips to the Soviet Union in a period of a year's time, in spring of 89 to the spring of 1990, and we met with perhaps 35 or so of the 43 artists in the exhibition.

Working with them directly and through the Union of Artists, which was our facilitator to actually export these materials to us.

And official artists, unofficial artists, has a very, very fascinating and rewarding experience for us.

And we got to see a great deal of art.

I think one of the important aspects of the exhibition to always remember is that we are showing Russian art truly from a Russian perspective.

It shows only artists who continue to live in Moscow and Leningrad.

It does not include the emigre artists who left Russia over the last 25 years and are practicing now in Paris and New York and elsewhere.

Thank you very much.

Brings together artists who have been considered extremely important as mentors and teachers in Russian art circles who really led to the evolution of art over there.

So therefore the exhibition unfolds according to periods of time.

It looks at the art of the 1960s, that of the 1970s, and the period today that's and marked by glass nose.

In the 1980s.

Soviet and American curators, art historians, and an advisory committee of scholars worked with the Soviet Union of Artists and the Russian Ministry of Culture to select artists for this exhibition.

System of art patronage in Russia and throughout the Soviet Union was very precisely organized and it was a situation where the state dictated what the arts would do.

The arts were basically propaganda for the glory of the state and to receive any official patronage, any commissions, any exhibitions, an artist would have to fulfill the dictates of the State.

The USSR Union of Artists was extremely powerful, and it presented essentially the official status on the artist.

Is an official branch of the government, through which the kind of art that is considered appropriate was generated.

And that has shifted then a little bit over the years.

It provides the studio space, the art supplies, commissions, and exhibition possibilities.

The unofficial dissident artists, who are not part of the Union of Artists, do not have as much access.

To materials and commissions as the union members did.

And in the 1960s generation, in the earlier days, this was particularly poignant.

In connection with their Arts 2000 project, the Ohio Arts Council has brought two Russian artists to the United States for a four-week visit.

Olga Gretchena, an established painter in the Soviet Union, has two paintings in this exhibition.

I think the life of an artist in the Soviet Union is very similar to that of any other artist.

Unfortunately, we have some problems with art supplies, but all other problems are the same.

The main problem of the artist is just to paint what he wants, to find the subject for his work.

Paintings.

She works in a modified realist style or photorealist style, blurring the images to give a real sense of contemporary pace and a certain anxious quality.

Well, the situation has changed and has changed to the best and really I believe that the Soviet Union now is an open society and the life of the artist has changed, but the situation is still changing and we all are afraid that the situation may change to the worst and there are lots of conflicts in different parts of the country, lots of unrest.

The demarcation between official and unofficial art is really no longer applicable, and because of that, artists are more able to show their work to have public displays, which were not as possible even in the mid-70s.

I think there'll be a great interest in imagery that reflects their Western experience.

It's a very confusing time, a time full of change.

It's very exciting.

I think it's very frightening for them, I think, at the same.

Time and there's also a feeling that perhaps it may all go Through trips to Moscow and Leningrad, which represents only a small portion of the Soviet Union, we really do come away with the realization that the stereotypes we hold about Russian people based on total ignorance of that huge part of the world will eventually fade as we get to know more and more about them.