Ural Branch of the State Center for Contemporary Art

About museum

The branch of the State Center for Contemporary Art opened in Yekaterinburg in 1999, taking on the mission of introducing contemporary art into the city's public space. Since 2005 the magazine Zaart has been published there, becoming a kind of printed 'archive' of Ural art of the 2000s. A collection of video art from the Ural–Siberian region was compiled and released. In 2007 the branch initiated the first Night of Museums in Yekaterinburg. Since 2008 the branch has implemented the program 'Ural Factories: Industry of Meanings', devoted to the artistic rethinking of the theme of industrial reality in the urban environment: within this program, for two years running the international festival-laboratory 'Art-zavod' took place in the city. Out of this program grew the branch's largest project to date – the Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art, founded in 2010. More than 100 production, exhibition, theatre, educational and business venues in Yekaterinburg and the Ural region took part in the biennial. Since 2011 the Yekaterinburg branch of the State Center for Contemporary Art has acquired its own building, becoming the Ural Branch and expanding its activities across the Ural Federal District (Sverdlovsk, Kurgan, Tyumen and Chelyabinsk regions; Khanty-Mansiysk and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrugs), and also launching a support program for young artists, 'Masterskaya' (The Workshop). Today more than ten projects of the Ural Branch have been nominated for the nationwide Innovation prize in contemporary art. The center's premises host exhibition projects, educational programs in contemporary art, artist residencies and studios.