Vadim Zakharov is one of the best known and most critically acclaimed artists of his generation. A recipient of many prizes, he has held a retrospective show at the Tretyakov Gallery, and has represented Russia in the biggest international exhibitions. A painter and a performance artist, he also makes objects and installations, and works with video. Additionally, he is a publisher, a collector, an archivist, and a guardian of the tradition of Moscow Conceptualism. Different as they are, his cultural projects have a common human focus and celebrate the thoughts, dreams, joy, and misery of a particular person; his or her unique perspective and understanding.
Zakharov was born in Dushanbe in 1959. He graduated from the Moscow State V. I. Lenin Pedagogical Institute (Painting and Drawing) in 1982, became part of the SZ group together with Viktor Skersis in 1980, and regularly exhibited at APTART gallery from 1982 to 1984. In the early 1980s, he took part in compiling the MANI (Moscow Archive of New Art) folders and MANI’s To the Studios 1 publication, and started his own collection and archive of Moscow contemporary art. In 1989, Zakharov moved to Germany and founded Pastor Zond Editions, which would publish the small-circulation Pastor journal on Moscow Conceptualism from 1992 to 2001. He was the compiling editor of Moscow Conceptualism (2005), and participated in Kapiton and Corbusier art groups from 2008 to 2010. Zakharov is a recipient of the Innovation contemporary art prize (2006) and Kandinsky Prize (2009), and represented Russia at the Venice Biennale in 2013. He is based between Berlin, Cologne, and Moscow.
