ABOUT FOUNDING DIRECTOR
Nina Zaretskaya was born in Moscow and currently lives and works in New York. She graduated from the Moscow State University with a Ph.D. in Philology and has made a career as a media art curator, a documentary producer, TV journalist, video maker, show host, founder and director of Art Media Center «TV Gallery» (1991), a Moscow institution highly praised for its contribution to the appearance and development of video and new media art in Russia.
Recipient of multiple grants and fellowships from Soros Foundation, Ford Foundation, Trust for Mutual Understanding, Mondriaan Foundation, German Cultural Center (among others), Nina has curated and organized numerous exhibitions, including «Total Recall» (dedicated to Phillip K. Dick), «This Other World of Ours» (video installations by Young British Artists), «Medium is the Message» (presentation of work by Nam June Paik), the goal of which was to introduce contemporary foreign art to the Russian audiences. She also organized exhibitions in Europe and the US, which helped to provide exposure of Russian artists to the Western public. Among these were: «Femininity’s Redress» at Angel Orensanz Foundation/Center for the Arts, New York, (which initiated a multi-phase project presenting progressive Russian women artists to the American public), «Detente: Russian Contemporary Art in Video Format» at the Slought Foundation, Philadelphia.
She is an author of numerous TV programs and series for Russian TV, including «TV Gallery»; «Shock-Show»; «Obvious Yet Incredible. XXI Century: Forecasts»; «Artists’ Portraits»; «Classics of Contemporary Art», featuring Dennis Oppenheim, Earl Brown, Nancy Spero, Morton Subotnick among others. Her documentaries include: «From Gulag to Glasnost: The Art of Resistance» (2001); «New York Dreamer» (2005), featuring Thomas Krens, then Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation; «Russia! The Drama of Art in Twelve Episodes» (2007); «Odnoralov’s Coat» (2010), the diploma of the Fifth Russian Documentary Film Festival in New York «For the artistic reflection of the idea of creative freedom in modern culture»; «Russian America» (2012), a documentary series that profiles the Russian-American cultural elite; and «Odd Winged Angel» (2008-2013) about the Russian born artist Pavel Tchelitchew. She was a participant in art shows and film festivals all over the world, among them - New York Festival of Russian Films, Hannover Film Festival, Oberhausen International Short Film Festival, Art Forum Berlin, Deutscher Videokunstpreis, ZKM, Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden (where her piece was selected as one of the best videos of the year), International Art Fair «ARKO», Madrid; Art Frankfurt (special program «TV Gallery’s Archives», a screening of videos and documentaries), SPLIT International Festival of New Film and Video, Ostranenie International Forum, BANFF International Festival of Video Programs and Films, Art Moscow, etc.
In 2005 - 2006 her film «From Gulag to Glasnost: The Art of Resistance» was screened at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, in conjunction with the exhibition RUSSIA! In 2017, her documentary «Should the Clover Rustle in the Meadow…» about the great Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko got the diploma for the best film in the «Russian Literature on the Screen» nomination category at the Tenth Russian Documentary Film Festival in New York. She was awarded the Pushkin Society in America Medal for an outstanding contribution to the popularization of Russian culture through documentary filmmaking.
