This year’s Art Moscow, May 14-18, 2008, opened to rather dreary forecasts, despite the undeniable buzz about Russian money sparking the international art market. Over its 12-year lifespan, Art Moscow has garnered a reputation for lackluster sales, near impossible negotiations with customs, and work with an unfortunate esthetic predilection for politics, pornography and idle provocation. For 2008, the contemporary art fair seemed to be facing a retrenchment, as a smaller number of galleries were invited to participate (45 as compared to 72 in 2007) and the space made available in Moscow’s Central House of Artists was drastically curtailed.
