By the end of the 80s, after many years of stagnation in the country, perestroika influenced many private initiatives. It did not bypass me either. Artists, having felt freedom in creative actions, presented their own visions at exhibitions, free from the official regulated art. As in the whole country, the Primorskaya Picture Gallery and the Union of Artists Association in 1988-89 in Vladivostok presented something new and fresh in artistic directions at exhibitions. Yesterday's nonconformists and avant-gardists revived.
On this wave, in 1990, the gallery of contemporary art Artetage registered the public association Fund of Culture "Co-creation" (where A.S. Doluda was the chairman, A.I. Gorodny was the director) based in the rehearsal hall of the Youth Theater, in its future activities it relies on the association of artists of the Primorsky avant-garde: this is the group "Vladivostok" (Rurik Tushkin, Valery Nenazhivin, Alexander Pyrkov, Fyodor Morozov, Viktor Shlikht, Yuri Sobchenko. Vladimir Samoilov) the group "Shtil" (Andrey Kamalov, Evgeny Makeev, Alexander Kutsenko, Vladimir Pogrebnyak, Sergey Simakov, Ilyas Zinatulin, Alexander Ionchenkov, Viktor Serov) including Alexander Kiryakhno, Valery Shapranov, Irina Nenazhivina, Alexander Donskoy, Vsevolod Mechkovsky, Valery Mukhtarulin, Gennady Omelchenko, Margarita Snytko and others. At the same time, Artetage valiantly presented about 150 works, paintings, graphics and sculptures with the exhibition "Vladivostok" in the Moscow Palace of Youth, where they were warmly received by Muscovites and art critics.
Since then, Artetage sees the creation of a Museum of Modern Art in Vladivostok as its main goal. Over 35 years of its activity, Artetage has organized and held more than 500 exhibitions, hosting Russian and foreign artists, repeatedly presented Primorye artists in galleries and museums in Russia (Khabarovsk, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Moscow, St. Petersburg) and abroad (Japan, USA, India, Korea, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Belgium), created a museum fund of significant works of modern art - today it is more than 2000 units of storage of works by Russian and foreign artists. During this time, Artetage changed several locations in the city (Youth Theater 1990-1992; White House (in the lobby of the regional administration) - 1992-2002; 2002-2003 FEFU; 2003-2014 FEFU; since 2015 as the Center for Contemporary Art under the city administration in the Dembi House).
Today, Artetage still primarily pays special attention to artists from Primorsky Krai and the Far East, plans exhibitions of famous and young artists, holds various thematic events, tours of temporary and permanent exhibitions.
Art Director of the Artetage Center for Contemporary Art,
Alexander Gorodny
2025