Kirill Svetlyakov

«Actually, the goal of contemporary art is to figure out the ways of uniting people. Nowadays in the tough situation of neoliberalism, there is a sharp social division. One the one hand there is a circle of elite, which is very neatly and strictly organized, and on the other hand there are all the others. It is absolutely true that modern art depends on elites a lot. But if the art does not unite people, then there is no point in it. If it cannot unite people, then it should help them to identify themselves, and to work out who what they are. Nowadays people do not understand who they are, because the boundaries between social classes are unclear. A man of the 20th century used to say: “I am a working man, an engineer, or I belong to intelligentsia.” But what the person is now, only an artist can give an answer. Because he can suggest an image. And sometimes a thing that can hardly be described with words, can be expressed with an image much more vividly» (Kirill Svetlyakov, KULTURA24)

«I'm interested in working with contemporary art, because every time I am challenged to create new principles of exhibiting for each phenomenon. If you exhibit a piece of art in unsuitable surroundings , then it won’t be demonstrated to its best advantage and could be simply lost» (Kirill Svetlyakov, ARTUZEL (ARTHUB))

The Chief contemporary art specialist of the State Tretyakov Gallery, the director of the A.G. Tyshler Educational and Research Center for the Study of Russian Culture of the 20th century at the School of Art History under the Russian State University for the Humanities, PhD in Art History, curator, art critic.

Kirill Svetlyakov is working in the State Tretyakov Gallery since 2006. His projects “Not toys ?!”, “The unbearable freedom of creativity”, “Decoration of the beautiful. Elitism and kitsch in contemporary art”,”Hyperrealism: When Reality Becomes an Illusion” have been highly praised by the art community. In 2011 Svetlyakov received “The independent Sergey Kuryokhin Contemporary Art Award” for the exhibition “Hostages of Voids” as “The best curatorial project”, which was held within the framework of the IV Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art.

Svetlyakov strives to model the comprehensive history of Russian art of the 20th century, which so far has been fragmented in public conscience, falling into separate episodes. He became one of the authors and the editor of “The State Tretyakov Gallery on the Crimean Val. The 20th century art. Guide” edition, which suggests innovative principles of the new art practices representation and experiments with the format of exhibitions in order to get across the intentions of the artist to the audience in a better way.

Kirill Svetlyakov is repeatedly mentioned in the lists of the most influential people in Russian art according to the “ArtChronika”, “Artguide” and “The Art Newspaper Russia”.