The 3rd 1703 Contemporary Art Fair opened in Saint Petersburg

The opening ceremony of the third 1703 Saint Petersburg Art Fair took place in the Manege Central Exhibition Hall. The project was initiated by Gazprom PJSC, and supported by the Saint Petersburg Committee for Culture. It has become a feature of the SPIEF’s "Petersburg Seasons" cultural Festival.

Sergey Kupriyanov, Member of the Gazprom Management Board: "Saint Petersburg has always been a great center of attraction. But we cannot rest, we must continue what we do. All Gazprom's city projects – construction, restoration, landscaping – are aimed at creating and developing centers of gravitas in Saint Petersburg. The 1703 Fair is on a par with such projects. It draws connoisseurs of contemporary art. It complements the city. We have the best museums. But a fair of such a scale, we had none, and Gazprom did it."

Boris Piotrovsky, Vice-Governor of Saint Petersburg: "Today, the Manege welcomes a lot of guests: professionals, admirers of modern art, residents and guests of our city. Saint Petersburg has always been at the forefront of modern art, and it continues to be the one today. Together with our strategic partner Gazprom, we are holding the 1703 fair for the third time. The number of participants and visitors is growing year on year, which is a clear sign that contemporary art is active, successful, in demand, as it should be."

Alisa Presnetsova, director of the 1703 Fair: "The 1703 Fair was initiated by Gazprom in 2022, as a natural step in the systematic support of culture and art that the company renders to Saint Petersburg. On behalf of the entire team of the Fair, as well as from me personally, I want to thank Alexey Miller for his trust and support. We are grateful that Gazprom gifted our city with this wonderful celebration of art. We also thank our partners who came to the fair with their booths this year."

By the third edition, the geography of the participants of the 1703 fair has significantly expanded: contemporary art at the Manege is quite diverse and is represented by 45 participants from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Samara, Kaluga, Nizhny Novgorod, Istanbul (Turkey) and Dubai (UAE). 

The debutant of the new season, Inloco Open Storage from Dubai, became the second foreign participant of the fair, along with the Turkish Ambidexter gallery, which takes part in the 1703 for the second year in a row.

Among the first timers of this edition are DiDi Gallery, pop/off/art, gallery scene/szena, PiranesiLAB, Space Four Concept Store, gallery MART, Gallery 9B, Gallery Victoria, Rosa Azora, gallery Jessica, architectural photo gallery Tochka, galleries of photography ART OF FOTO and ZERNOGALLERY, SUBSTATION. 

Marina Gisich Gallery, Pogodina Gallery, KultProekt, KROKIN GALLERY, MAISON25, Lumiere Gallery, MYTH Gallery, Pro Art's Gallery, Triumph gallery, a—s—t—r—a gallery, E.K.ArtBuro, FINEART GALLERY, 11.12 GALLERY, PENNLAB Gallery, 3L Gallery, PALATY, ITMO University Art & Science Center, Masters Digital Gallery, VS Gallery, FUTURO Gallery, Béton Visual Culture Center, NAMEGALLERY, ARTZIP, PALTO GALLERY are coming for the second time already.

Conceptually, the 1703 Fair is divided into five sections. The first and largest, “The Core”, features 26 galleries with own exhibition spaces and a regular program. It represent the broadest range of artists, from classics of Soviet nonconformists to promising young talents. 

pop/off/art will will present art as a financial instrument – Vitaly Pushnitsky's “futures contract”. The artist will present finished paintings, as well as “potential works” accompanied by descriptions that are yet to become paintings, as well as recognized Saint Petersburg artists: Vladimir Shinkarev, Evgeny Mikhnov-Voitenko, Ivan Plyushch. MYTH Gallery will bring a solo booth by Egor Fedorichev, who in his work addresses the archetypal components of the Russian culture. The theme of the KultProekt gallery is the movement from lyrical abstraction to a realistic landscape and memories of non—existent landscapes. DiDi Gallery will present a pool of its young artists - Sasha Braulov, Victoria Bodrova, Danil Dege, Artyom Maksimov, Pavel Pletnev. At the FUTURO Gallery booth, you can see both recognized artists — nominees and finalists of contemporary art awards, as well as actively developing young authors. The works of various artists that are exhibited at the Marina Gisich Gallery stand collectively reflect a wide range of emotional experiences: from existential fear to experiencing vulnerability and fragility of being.

The second section, "Algorithm", is reserved for galleries exploring the forms of synergy between art and the latest technologies. There are four of them in this edition: Inloco open storage, Masters Digital Gallery, VS Gallery and the Art & Science Center of ITMO University. Among the art shown there are NFTs, video and neuro art, Russian street wave artists, conceptualists from Italy and muralists from Algeria.

The third section, the "Project", represents galleries, art associations and groups that are not tied to permanent spaces and specialize in online formats of art representation. The JESSICA Gallery's stand will feature "cutting-edge art", including works by Ivan Chemakin, Vera Svetlova, Ilya Grishaev and Nestor Engelke. Rosa Azora will present fabric panels by the artist Maria Arendt, where embroidery becomes a medium connecting various layers of reality and forming a new world of the artist.

The fourth section, "Material", brings under one umbrella the galleries that work with collectible design and interior objects: 3L Gallery, CHAMBERS and Space Four Concept Store. Most of them represent the art of Russian designers and craftsmen rethinking the traditions of antiquity.

The body of the fair will be complemented by special non-profit projects. This year there are four of them, selected artwork from Gazprombank's corporate collection, a unique non-profit project "1024" brought by a multidisciplinary artist Evgenia Tut from the Limonov Art Foundation, works by graduates of the Ilya Repin St. Petersburg Academy of Arts and Dmitry Margolin's installation "A Seemingly Ordinary Garden" from Pop-Up Gallery and curator Ksenia Goschitskaya.

One of the important innovations of this season were the special projects created by three partners of the 1703 Fair – AURUS, RBI and ALROSA Diamonds. The exhibition "The First to light the Way" at the AURUS booth at the 1703 Fair is a symbiotic product of the technology aesthetics and the energy of leadership delivered thanks to a collaboration between AURUS and G-Drive The central piece of the booth, a palace chandelier, assembled from the AURUS Senat car components, harbors a metaphor of light that illuminates progress. RBI brings a prototype of the project, which will be installed in front of the entrance to the lobby of the Struna house on Shostakovich Street. The central element of the project is a stone boulder that emits natural sounds collected out in the Karelia wild. Interactive mechanics are based on tactile interaction. By touching the stone, you get the opportunity to change its sound in real time. ALROSA Diamonds will showcase “The Stream of Light" project at their booth, created in conjunction with FRESH.GLASS, a team exploring the nature of glass. Their immersive installation resembles a source of groundwater, filled with soft dashes of light. The glass, ductile as a river stream, a favorite artisan material, reveals the ability of diamonds to transform a transcending light in a new way. Jewelry items from the LETHE collection, inspired by nature and the meditative beauty of water, serves as part of the installation.

As part of the cultural and educational program, visitors to the 1703 fair will enjoy art mediation, as well as lectures and discussions with the participation of leading experts in the field of art. Among the key topics are: contemporary art as part of contemporary culture, the promotion of art projects, development of art in the regions, collecting and the role of fairs in the art field.

The opening hours of the fair are from 11:00 to 20:00.                                                                            

Follow the link for the full program of events.

Entrance tickets can be purchased on our website and at the Manege ticket offices.