Marat Gelman

Marat Aleksandrovich Gelman (Марат Александрович Гельман; born 24 December 1960) is a Russian collector, gallerist, and op-ed columnist.

The former director of PERMM contemporary art museum in Perm.

Marat Guelman was born on 24 December 1960 in Chişinău.

His father is the writer and playwright Alexander Isaakovich Gelman.

Upon finishing high school 34 in Chişinău in 1977, Marat Guelman went on to study at Moscow Electrotechnical Institute of Communications while working as a mechanic and a sceneshifter at Moscow Academic Art Theater, Sovremennik and Mayakovsky Theatre.

He graduated in 1983 earning a degree in engineering.

Guelman worked as an engineer in Chişinău until 1986.

After the Soviet era criminal rule on social parasitism was abolished on 1 March 1986, he quit his job to write a novel and to start his own business.

In 1987, Guelman, who had had an interest in art and specifically in contemporary art since his early youth, made his very first art exhibition, displaying the works of Moscow artists in Chişinău.

The exhibition was a major success, in terms of both publicity and finance.

When he came to Moscow to hand over to the artists the paintings and the money earned from sales, Guelman decided to stay in the capital.

He started his career in arts as a collector, however, having made poor choices for his first collection due to lack of experience he had no choice but to acquire the skills of selling artworks thus becoming the first art dealer in the USSR.

In 1990, upon finishing his contemporary art studies abroad, he put together a collection of Ukrainian art, which became the core of South Russian Wave exhibition, shown in 1992, which caught the attention of the publicity and resulted in major feedback.(Later Ukrainian artists of the "South Wave" began to exhibit independently under the name Ukrainian New Wave).

Guelman himself describes his path into art and his career in art as a series of accidents.

However, he believes this flexibility and open-mindedness in taking chances to be even more important for success than determination.

In 1990, Guelman opened his gallery, one of the first Russian private contemporary art galleries.

Besides, in the early 1990s, Guelman was working hard to bring the post-Soviet art back to the international context.

From 1992 to 1995, the gallery was based in the Contemporary Art Center in Moscow Yakimanka st., from 1995 to 2007 it was situated in 7/7 Malaya Polyanka st., and from 2007 to 2012 it was set on the premises of Winzavod Contemporary Art Center.

Despite the many changes, it was colloquially known as Guelman Gallery all the time

The history of Guelman Gallery more or less depicts the history of contemporary art in post-Soviet Russia.

Over the years, the gallery had collaborations with almost every prominent artist of the respective period, from the classics of Moscow conceptualism (Yuri Albert, Igor Makarevich, Vadim Zakharov, Dmitri Prigov), Sots Art (Vitaly Komar & Alexander Melamid, Boris Orlov, Leonid Sokov) and postmodernism (Pavel Pepperstein, Georgy Ostretsov) to St. Petersburg “New Academy” artists (Timur Novikov), to the legendary Mitki group, and Moscow action Art (Oleg Kulik, Anatoly Osmolovsky, Alexander Brener, Oleg Mavromati, Avdey Ter-Oganyan, RADEK group), to South Russian Wave (Alexander Sigutin, Arsen Savadov, Alexander Roitburd, Oleg Golosiy), to the pioneers of media art (Blue Soup group, AES+F, Olga Chernysheva, Vladislav Efimov & Aristarkh Chernyshev); and from painters (Yury Shabelnikov, Valery Koshlyakov, Alexander Vinogradov & Vladimir Dubosarsky, Dmitry Vrubel) to photographers (Boris Mikhailov, ladislav Mamyshev-Monroe), architects (Alexander Brodsky, Alexey Belyaev-Gintovt, sculptors (Dmitry Gutov, Grisha Bruskin, Martynchik couple) and artists who work with installations and new media (Irina Nakhova, Vladimir Arkhipov, Blue Noses group and others).

Apart from Russian artists, Guelman exhibited Ukrainian art in his gallery, which was at the very roots of his work as a curator and a gallerist (South Russian Wave exhibition, 1992).

A significant share of his collection has always been reserved for Ukrainian art.

In 1995, Guelman became one of the creators of the Foundation for Effective Politics (FEP), along with Gleb Pavlovsky and Maxim Meyer.

The deputy director of Channel One from June 2002 to February 2004.

From 2002 to 2004, there was a local branch of Guelman Gallery in Kiyv, managed by Guelman's friend and one of the artists featured by the Moscow Gallery, Oleksandr Rojtburd.

A political consultant, a co-founder of the Foundation for Effective Politics, and a member of Russia's Public Chamber (2010–2012 convocation).

The gallery worked until 2012, changing a few names during its 20-year-long history (Gallery Guelman, M. Guelman Gallery, M. and Y. Guelman Gallery).

It also moved three times.

Gelman has lived in Montenegro since 2014.

In 2014, Guelman moved to Montenegro to implement cultural projects in this country.

That was also the year when Dukley European Art Community residency program was launched by Neil Emilfarb, Petar Cukovic, and Guelman.

The residency program was initially invitation-based, however, it is now open to all artists through an application system.

The results of the artists’ work are exhibited on a regular basis.

The activities of the residency program have been gradually making significant changes to the cultural status of Kotor, the city hosting the project, and to all of Montenegro.

Marat Guelman has chosen this country to further advance and implement his concept of post-economy society and humanitarian engineering

On 30 December 2021, Russia's Ministry of Justice added Gelman to its list of “foreign agents”.

While living in Montenegro, Gelman continues to maintain good relations with the artists who have exhibited in his gallery.

He and Ukrainian curator Kostyantyn Doroshenko recently drew public attention to Illya Chichkan’s Psychodarwinism project.

On December 20, 2022, he was put on the wanted list under a criminal article, the article is not specified.