Art Gallery Business in Kyiv Olena Abramovych Dmytro Stepanets Margo Gontar Ivan Zhezhera Tania-Maria Lytvynyuk Alina Sugonyako

The leading companies and people Bottega Gallery (M.Scherbenko) “Ya” Gallery (P. Gudimov) ZEH (O. Scheluschenko) Karas’ Gallery (Y. Karas’) Soviart (V. Khamatov) Collection Gallery (Y.Kogutyak) RA Gallery And some others

Artists Each gallery has certain artists (usually 10-15) it works with. They are often well-known in Ukraine, some of them are famous abroad as well.

Exhibitions Galleries organize exhibitions every 2-3 weeks. They can be personal exhibitions of some artist’s paintings or present works of masters that belong to different generations.

Prices of the pictures e.g., in Karas’ Gallery there are paintings of young Ukrainian masters which usually cost $1,000-5,000 and works of well- known artists – the price is $7,000-15,000. There are also older paintings drawn in 80-90’s, so their price is higher (circa $15,000-20,000). The galleries get near 25-50% of the picture’s price The prices of pictures depend on the level of artist’s popularity

Challenges that face the galleries The main problem is no profit caused by crisis and lack of collectors who would buy paintings for their collections and, therefore, support both the gallery and the painter;

Pavlo Gudimiv, the owner of “Ya” gallery “I clearly understand that I can not stop because I love it terribly, to stop would be a sin,”- says Gudimov. In the interwiev for “Den” newspaper Gudimov says that holding of art galleries is unprofitable business. Only love, satisfaction, a mission helps it last. “Den” newspaper

Pavlo Gudimov for “”Correspondent” magazine “”Correspondent” magazine “You can earn money by creating a holding company, where the gallery would be the one of the directions. All those involved in contemporary art, they know it’s not money in its pure form, but the passion and cool projects that require specific investments”.

Additional directions The I-Design in “Ya”gallery - an architectural workshop that performs private commercial orders; Visual Art School in RA gallery: RA photography workshops, basics of visual art lessons; Children’s art studio in Bottega gallery etc.

Other challenges Lack of highly-qualified experts who could define the real value of paintings; Lack of the space for fresh art ideas: Yevheniy Karas says that many talented painters just don’t have any place to show their masterpiece. All popular galleries are stuffed with their competitors’ works; so many young unknown painters are just aboard.

Projects for young artists e.g. “Bottega” gallery has a program “MUHi”, which allows young artists show their works on the special exhibitions. The galleries usually launch different projects to help young artists.

Project “Genofond” of the “Ya” gallery. This project finds scholarships for young authors. “I just asked the collectors whether they wish to take someone from young artists for promotion” – says Pavlo Gudimov.

Educational programs ”Ya” gallery has several educational programs in design and art. The courses and lectures on media art are held. Pavlo Gudimov: “I hope to bring together cultural leaders, so it will be possible to organize many educational programs with a certain cooperation rather than spontaneous”

Exhibitions abroad “Soviart” gallery has been organizing exhibitions in Denmark for already 10 years. The gallery also had projects in the USA, Germany etc. Some galleries try to organize exhibitions of their artists abroad.

References