This May Nizhny Novgorod hosted Contour art fair dedicated to works on paper and its satellite, Contour.Photo. This season, it has grown even stronger, adding more galleries and has a new location.

For contemporary art enthusiasts, Nizhny Novgorod first emerged on Russia’s cultural map in the 1990s, when a group of energetic local curators and artists began staging exhibitions and happenings in the then-abandoned Arsenal building within the Kremlin grounds. The restored space later became home to a dynamic branch of the National Centre for Contemporary Arts – now part of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts – with an ambitious exhibition programme, while the city itself saw the opening of its first contemporary art galleries in various locations.

Around the same time, the city’s first serious art collectors also began to emerge, among them businessman Dmitry Volodin. His collecting interests today range from Old Masters and precious brooches – to which he recently dedicated a small private museum – to contemporary art. When Russia’s contemporary art boom gathered momentum in the 2020s, and art fairs began proliferating across the country, Volodin decided to launch his own project in Nizhny Novgorod.

In 2023, the first edition of the graphic art fair Contour was held in the parking garage of Volodin’s Sheraton Hotel in the city centre, bringing together 30 galleries from across Russia. The collector recalls with some pride that only two months separated the spontaneous idea for the fair from its opening. Leading galleries from Moscow and St Petersburg came to support the regional initiative – and, naturally, their clientele. The decision to focus on graphic art, traditionally considered one of the most accessible and affordable forms of collecting for regional buyers, proved entirely successful: both dealers and collectors left satisfied.

The fourth edition of Contour, which opened to collectors on May 14, has now attracted 77 galleries from Moscow, St Petersburg, Voronezh, Kazan, Lipetsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Palekh, Rostov-on-Don, Samara, Tver, Ufa and Chelyabinsk. Several special projects were also presented alongside the main fair.

The principal development of this year’s edition was the new venue: a former 19th-century barracks building on the banks of the Volga, offering sweeping views through its many large windows. The four-storey space is ideal from a visitor’s perspective, combining convenient access with an unusual sense of openness and freedom of movement, though not all gallery owners were entirely enthusiastic. “It’s a completely different experience in a hotel parking garage: you can take a client upstairs to their room and show them works in a relaxed atmosphere – or simply pull them out of the bar and introduce them to art five steps away,” several dealers remarked to Art Focus Now. Yet even these sceptics have little reason for concern: the building will likely soon undergo renovation. In the meantime, the crowds of guests and local art enthusiasts who descended on the city for the vernissage appeared thoroughly engaged in viewing – and purchasing – graphic works by Russian artists. And there was much to choose from: galleries brought not only affordable drawings and lithographs by emerging artists, but also museum-quality works by major figures of Russian art.

PiranesiLAB, a gallery specialising in experimental printmaking, exhibited graphic works by Olga Chernysheva (b. 1962), winner of the prestigious Prix Guerlain (from $600), alongside mixed-media drawings by the young artist Nikon Filippov (from $1,000). The online gallery Ob’edinenie brought together younger artists from various Russian cities at its stand: Vsevolod Abazov (b. 1992) from Nizhny Novgorod, whose work explores urban folklore (drawings from $900), and Polina Maier (b. 1997) from St Petersburg, whose practice investigates the relationship between the physical and the figurative (drawings from $300).

Two of Moscow’s longest-established dealers, Pogodina Gallery and E.K.ArtBureau, focused on classic and established names. The former presented the mystical graphic works of Maxim Ksuta (b. 1971) (from $600), the ambiguous drawings of Aidan Salakhova (b. 1964) (from $1,200), and works from Daria Konovalova-Infante’s (b. 1978) ongoing series ‘The Secret Life of Things’, in which the artist invents imaginary shadows for familiar objects and images (from $300). E.K.ArtBureau, meanwhile, exhibited a surrealist work by Lev Povzner (b. 1939) ($8,500), a self-portrait by Timur Novikov (1958–2002) ($15,000), and a large monochrome by Pavel Pepperstein (b. 1966) depicting a blossoming flower ($18,000).

Victoria Gallery presented ironic drawings by Yana Arbuzova (b. 1996) (from $120) alongside elegant sketches by Anton Antonov (from $100). Didi Gallery, which also specialises in Soviet underground art, offered a still life by Timur Novikov from 1982 ($12,000) and a large collage by Oleg Kotelnikov (b. 1958) from 1988 ($10,000). Meanwhile, the Community of Contemporary Siberian Artists gallery presented mystical graphic works by Yanina Boldyreva (b. 1986), priced between $120 and $1,300.

Twenty-six galleries – most of which also maintained stands at the main Contour fair – participated in the satellite fair Contour.Photo, located on the third floor of the barracks building. PENNLAB Gallery presented works by Elena Anosova (b. 1983) and Alexey Korsi (b. 1986), while FotoDepartament Gallery exhibited works by Vera Barkalova and Kristina Bashkova (b. 1998). Anna Nova Gallery showcased the folkloric fantasy imagery of Yuldus Bakhtiozina (b. 1986), with works priced from $1,900.

As at previous Moscow art fairs, censorship was not entirely absent in Nizhny Novgorod – and not only in relation to individual works, but also to artists themselves. Behind the scenes, dealers repeatedly referred to the figure “60”: allegedly the number of artists and photographers included on unofficial oversight lists said to have arrived from Moscow. Some galleries quietly removed works from display, while others covered them with tracing paper.

Perhaps the most emblematic project at the fair – a luminous testament to the enduring fascination with works on paper and, in many ways, the quintessence of the fair itself – was the exhibition ‘At the Edges’. It brought together selections from the collection of Alexander and Victoria Artemov, young Moscow collectors with just five years of collecting experience, including drawings and photographs by Francisco Infante (b. 1943), the Collective Actions group, Olga Chernysheva, and others. “We buy only what truly touches our souls,” they told Art Focus Now. “Even now, although the walls of our home have long been full, we continue collecting. That is why we are planning to create an open-storage space in Moscow soon. We want other people to be able to experience and enjoy art together with us.”