MOSCOW (Olga Sobolevskaya, RIA Novosti commentator) -- VIPs flock to the Manezh in the evenings, including federal ministers, high level officials, tycoons and gallery owners. Moscow's principal exposition hall owes this impressive gathering to a second Moscow International Fine Arts Fair, which opened, September 20, in the newly reconstructed historical monument built in 1817, the brainchild of brilliant architects Bove and Betaincourt.
68 art galleries from all over the world are participating in the exhibition. Moscow has never seen such a huge collection of privately owned 14th-20th century masterpieces. "It's an insane project!" show organizers say, overwhelmed with their own daring.
The Manezh is showing Byzantine icons, antique jewelry, furniture Versailles or Sans Souci would be proud of, silver vases, tapestries, Oriental pottery, coins, ancient manuscripts, and a vast number of precious canvases: by Rubens, Renoir, Monet, Chagall, Dali, Picasso, Leger and Warhol.
Galleries from Moscow and St. Petersburg make up 15 per cent of the exhibitors. The fair has turned the Manezh basement into a treasury, with diamonds, emeralds, rubies and sapphires set in platinum, gold or silver shining in their glass cases. Glossy magazines have photographed the sparkling objects on display. Many top-notch jewelers are offering their endeavors. Standing out among them is Gilbert Albert, who is celebrating his 75th birthday in Russia. The Swiss celebrity won ten Diamonds International Awards, the Oscars of the jewel world.
The public-at-large is eager to see this wonderland - but all visitors are from the cream of society. Interspersing bejeweled ladies' conversation are token words, "Dolce & Gabbana", "Yohji Yamamoto" and suchlike. Foreigners, demure and imperturbable, are walking the hall side by side with big businessmen's effusive girlfriends.
The show organizers describe the event as a "pilot project". The idea is to move Russian private collectors to buy the "real things," genuine masterpieces. That is one of the many practical ways for Russia to recover lost treasures. But then, there is an 18 percent VAT, too much to get it going, warns Yves Bouvier, Art Culture Studio president. His company was leading the organization efforts.
The Art Fair has no precedent for the number and excellence of exhibits, and for exposition design. Patrick Hourcade, French art scholar and artist designer, and chief Fair artist, drew inspiration for it from the Empire look of the place, Renaissance architecture, and Avenue Montaine, heart of posh Parisian boutiques. Mr. Hourcade admires the way Moscow has restored the Manezh after a destructive fire several years ago. He considers it one of Europe's best exposition premises.
"We are glad the World Fine Art Fair is the event that has thrown the reborn Manezh doors open to the world," says Bulgaria's Valentina Vassileva of the Art Culture Studio, Moscow Art Fair office manager.
Leading art dealers from Paris, London, Brussels, New York and several German towns are active at the Fair-suffice it to mention the renowned Marlborough, Krugier Ditesheim & Cie, Burkhard Eikelmann, the Marks with its 17th century silver plate collection, the Steinitz with Classical art works, and the Art Deco. Salon de l'art du 20-e siecle, which is displaying furniture from the first half of the 20th century.
The Moscow Art Fair offers Russian art dealers a good chance for schooling, with master classes by their top-notch colleagues at the Manezh lecture hall. Years will pass before the best collectors start coming to Moscow just as they gather now in Maastricht, spring, in London and Monte Carlo, summer, and travel on to Paris for autumn. Be that as it may, the current venture is surely worthwhile. Yves Bouvier points out vast resources of the Russian art market, and that market is getting a big chance with the second Moscow Fine Arts Fair.
