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Tatyana Lazareva: Hello, dear friends, dear viewers of the Lazarevo channel. It's me, Lazareva, still here as always. Before I begin my conversation with my friend, who is wildly interesting to me, I want to remind you that I really need your comments, likes, and subscriptions. This is simply to bring as many people as possible to this channel. It's not about monetization—believe me, I can't have any advertising on my channel. I am already a person pretty thoroughly banned from advertising. It's just so that as many people as possible can watch my main project, the second season of which is coming out soon. Please, if you're watching right now, subscribe and leave a like.
And now, I am eager to jump into the conversation with my friend, Marat Guelman. Hello, dear Marat!
Marat Guelman: Hello, my dear.
Lazareva: Thank you for agreeing to this. I was actually surprised that you were a bit coy at first, saying, "Oh, what's there to say about me?" It’s impossible not to talk about you! How are you living right now? Who are you today? Your life is so packed that one doesn't even know where to begin—it's all so delicious.
I'll start with this: I am fundamentally curious about your view of the world today. Do you communicate with young people? What are they like, and what kind of world is waiting for us right on our doorstep? But first, I want to ask: what were you like when you were young? You lived in Chisinau in your youth. I’ve never been there, which I deeply regret. Probably won't happen anytime soon, though someday, of course, I will visit.
Guelman: I lived in Chisinau until I was 16, then went to study in Moscow. In 1982, I returned for two years—back then, you had to fulfill a mandatory work placement after university.
Lazareva: Was going to Moscow your own desire? Did you apply and get in independently, or did your parents move?
Guelman: Chisinau is a lovely, but very sleepy, dull city. Leaving Chisinau was my dream starting from when I was about 14. It was just such a quiet, drowsy place.
Lazareva: How so? Why did you want to leave at 14? People still live there and are happy. Your peers are there. What was wrong with you, Guelman?
Guelman: Back then, the defining word was "boredom." Everything felt stagnant, and I wanted something livelier.
Lazareva: But not everyone felt that way. That's my point. Why you?
Guelman: I think it was a general consensus: if you were good at mathematics, where could you go? If you had a shot at a Moscow university, you moved in that direction. Back then, the entire USSR was split into Moscow and "everywhere else." Life in Moscow—and St. Petersburg—was of a completely different caliber. It didn't depend on money or anything else; it was simply about where you were located.
For instance, during all five years of university in Moscow, I went to the theater at least three times a week. Imagine living in Moscow for five years, working at a theater just to trade tickets. As a stagehand at the Moscow Art Theatre (MXAT), you'd set up a play, run over to Malaya Bronnaya to watch a performance there, and then run back to strike the set at MXAT.
Lazareva: That’s incredible. Was that connected to your father in any way?
Guelman: Having my father [Alexander Guelman, the playwright] meant it was easier for me to land that stagehand job.
Lazareva: And that’s it? What about your interest in theater?
Guelman: I think everyone was interested in theater back then. It was an era when all intellectual life was concentrated in the theater because total censorship existed everywhere else. In film or literature, a censor sat with a red pen crossing lines out. But theater had air. Why? Because they knew the KGB came to the first dress rehearsal, the FSB types to the second, the Ministry of Culture to the third—and on the fourth run, you could suddenly perform freely without the bosses watching. Because it was live theater, they passed censorship and left, and the play was performed anew every night.
Lazareva: Didn't anyone ever bring their wife or mistress to a show, see something provocative, and write an informer's report?
Guelman: First of all, this was the late 1970s and 80s. When they came for work, they monitored things; when they brought their wives, they didn't pay attention.
So theater was a zone of freedom. It's fascinating how that freedom later migrated to rock music, then to literary journals, and eventually to contemporary art. But when I was studying—between 1977 and 1982—life revolved around the theater. Because I worked in theater, I could skip some university exams. The dean would come to me and say, "Marat, a very important delegation is arriving. Five tickets, please." And I'd say, "Sure thing."
Lazareva: "And what grade will I get?"
Guelman: Exactly. It wasn't explicit bartering, but it was understood that my grades were taken care of. It was a unique moment in the country's history when theater was everything. After that came books. I was lucky in Moldova because local publishing houses were the first to print Bulgakov—Moscow publishers weren't allowed to yet, but Moldovan ones somehow secured the rights.
Lazareva: I lived in Novosibirsk, and we had a great West-Siberian Publishing House doing similar things.
Guelman: Yes, those regional pockets existed.
Lazareva: So you studied, went to the theater, worked, and then returned. When did you realize you wanted to move toward contemporary art?
Guelman: It’s a long story. On March 1, 1984, the Soviet law against "social parasitism" (tuneyadstvo) was repealed. Before that, you were legally obligated to be formally employed somewhere, or you could face prison. On March 2, I handed in my resignation. I had ideas—I wanted to write a novel. I needed free time.
Then, needing money, we founded an organization. It was during the early Perestroika era when youth centers (NTTM) were allowed. An organization could earn a lot, though personal salaries were still capped at Soviet rates. We had funds, so I said, "Chisinau is quiet. Let's stage an exhibition of Moscow avant-garde artists."
While working in theater set production, I had met many non-conformist artists. Academic art institutions were heavily ideological and strict, but applied fields—like stage design or architecture—had much more freedom. Most Soviet non-conformist artists were architects, theater designers, or graphic artists, because fine art painting and sculpture were strictly controlled by the Communist Party.
I knew many of these artists and loved their work, so I put together an exhibition in Chisinau. It was a massive success. When I returned to Moscow to hand the artists their earnings and press clippings, one of them—the head of the youth section of the Union of Artists—said, "You're good at this. Move to Moscow and be my producer."
I loved Moscow so much that I went back to Chisinau, closed my business within two months, and moved. I called him, and he said, "I'm flying to the US for an exhibition. We'll start when I'm back." He moved to the US permanently and never came back. But I couldn't return to Chisinau—everyone there was already envious that Marat had been invited to Moscow!
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Lazareva: Oh, I understand that completely! Going back to Novosibirsk after leaving for drama school in Moscow with nothing would have been terrifying.
Guelman: I tried to survive. It was a tough period, but I managed, set up a business again, and started collecting art in Moscow.
By 1988, I faced a major challenge. I was studying art history informally at the Düsseldorf Kunsthalle and realized that the collection I had assembled no longer interested me. I needed to sell it, but there were no private galleries in Moscow to help. I had to sell it myself. When I sold it all at a profit, I accidentally became the first art dealer in Russia.
I then used those funds to collect new art—this time from Ukraine and Southern Russia. I staged a high-profile show in Moscow, which caught the attention of Leonid Bazhanov, a prominent art historian. He came to me and said, "You need to open a gallery." I said, "What gallery? There's no market here." He replied, "You love working with artists and staging exhibitions. I'll bring you clients, and you donate 10% to our Center for Contemporary Art."
In 1990, I invested everything I had and opened the gallery. It operated under my management for 18 years. He never brought a single client, but the gallery was already open, so there was no turning back!
Lazareva: That was your first gallery. How many came after?
Guelman: I can tell these stories like comedic anecdotes now, but as a result, my gallery in the 1990s became perhaps the most internationally connected gallery in Moscow.
In 1993, a dealer from New York arrived to organize a large exhibition of Russian art in the US. I helped him gather a massive collection, and then he disappeared with the artworks. That happened back then. But I felt responsible toward the artists, so I flew to New York to hunt him down. Two months later, I found him. He hadn't stolen the art—the project had simply failed, so he abandoned it and stopped paying for the storage facility. I paid the storage fees and retrieved the art. But during those two months of searching for him, I built relationships with key galleries across New York.
Lazareva: And you brought the artists to them.
Guelman: Exactly. In the 1990s, almost all Russian art entering New York and Germany passed through my gallery. These strange accidents kept turning into successes. People thought I was strategic, but it was just navigating circumstances.
I watch what you write on social media because it's inspiring to see someone who isn't afraid of trying new things. Now that you're an established, mature figure, do you see a difference in how you handle mistakes or successes compared to before?
Guelman: From about 2012 onward, I entered a phase where everything went according to plan. No mistakes.
Lazareva: A bit of stagnation?
Guelman: Stagnation, yes. Everything felt predictable. I consciously broke out of it because it felt like the early 1980s again—as if my life was mapped out until retirement.
Moving away gave me a fresh start. In 2014, I moved to Montenegro and launched a great cultural project. But everything I did was constantly compared to my past achievements. Montenegro was compared to my Perm project; my Berlin gallery was compared to my Moscow gallery. The past always seemed to win because of its scale and media resonance. I only recently realized how significant the Perm project was globally. In 2017, I curated an exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery in London. It received two thousand press reviews worldwide, and every article introduced me as the "former director of the PERMM Museum," rather than a "former Moscow gallerist."
Lazareva: It was a unique moment in time. Media attention shifted beyond Moscow and St. Petersburg, and you put Perm on the global map.
Guelman: It was a alignment of circumstances. Then the full-scale war began, and the cancellation of Russian culture hit hard. I realized I needed to shed the past and start fresh.
Throughout my 40 years in art, the constant refrain was: "There is nothing new in art, and there can never be anything new." That was the "End of History" narrative, postmodernism as an endless game of reinterpretation. If someone came into my gallery claiming to have invented a "new art movement," I assumed they needed psychiatric help.
Then, three major events happened almost simultaneously:
Unlike my Western European or American colleagues, I can't just rest on my laurels. In 2019, I donated 200 artworks to the Tretyakov Gallery—the third-largest individual donation in its history. I could have just coasted on that reputation. Instead, I opened my 251st gallery in Berlin.
Our artists face the same reality. Anatoly Osmolovsky, one of Russia's most significant contemporary artists, now lives in Berlin. A German artist of his stature sells works for a million euros, and their gallerist tells them: "Don't change your style, the market wants repetitions." But Osmolovsky can't just coast on his Russian reputation today; he has to rebuild everything from scratch.
So I decided to throw myself into the new—as an artist. I had an exhibition during Art Basel, and I have upcoming solo shows in Berlin and Chelsea, New York, presenting Marat Guelman explicitly as an artist.
Lazareva: Did you paint before?
Guelman: In the 1980s, I tried everything: writing, painting. I realized back then that I wasn't exceptionally talented as a painter, so I learned to appreciate the talents of others. In the early 90s, Moscow was full of talented artists, but almost no one was willing to serve their talent. My gallery filled that void. For 30 years, I funneled my creative energy into running galleries.
I returned to making art because I felt a need to speak directly, in the first person, rather than through other artists. My first series as an artist was called "First of All, It's Beautiful," featuring landscapes with nuclear explosions.
About a year and a half into the war, Putin began issuing nuclear threats. Journalists asked me, "Do you think he'll do it?" I realized he might, but if I kept repeating that fear, I'd be playing his game of nuclear blackmail. So I decided to paint it. The less we fear blackmail, the less power the blackmailer holds. I created beautiful landscapes in the styles of famous masters, punctuated by nuclear mushroom clouds.
On November 13, we are opening a group exhibition titled "Good Bad Jews." It features global figures like Art Spiegelman [author of Maus]. My contribution to the show is a project titled "Guelman the Jew," where I invented a fictional Jewish artist who wants to be a Jewish Andy Warhol. The 24 works in that series have already been reserved by a museum and several collectors before the opening.
This new phase also coincided with me reclaiming my Moldovan citizenship. I donated a collection of valuable artworks to Moldova as well.
This new life doesn't mean abandoning my past. I am a member of the Anti-War Committee alongside Khodorkovsky, Kasparov, and others.
Lazareva: Remind me, why did you leave Russia in 2014?
Guelman: When the full-scale invasion started in 2022, people asked me, "Did you see this coming?" Someone pulled up an interview I gave in 2014 where I explicitly said: "I am leaving because I don't want to participate in Russia's war." The trajectory toward war became clear back in 2014.
Lazareva: And you had young children around that time too.
Guelman: Yes, I have three young children now. Two were born in Montenegro, and one was six months old when we left Moscow. They're attending school in Berlin now.
Lazareva: You mentioned entering the art world as a "young artist," but how old are you now?
Guelman: I'm 64. I ran a health diagnostic program recently, and it calculated that I have about 11 years of youthful vitality left! Eleven years is a solid amount of time to get things done.
Lazareva: You're stepping into the niche of a young artist. Aren't you taking up someone else's space?
Guelman: Culture doesn't work that way. Everyone creates their own space and occupies it. Vladimir Sorokin didn't take anyone's slot; he created the "Sorokin slot" and filled it.
In marketing, you can spot a missing restaurant or laundry shop. But you can't spot a "missing artist" because art isn't driven by market demand—the artist creates the demand for themselves. So I'm not taking anyone's place. However, I make sure not to act as my own producer. Today in Prague, I agreed with a leading gallerist that he will represent my work in Central Europe. I support other artists through my residency in Montenegro, but for my own art, I find dealers to represent me.
Lazareva: What remains from your old life?
Guelman: My work with the Anti-War Committee takes up a lot of time. I feel a personal responsibility to engage in anti-war and anti-Putin work.
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I've also built a new art collection since 2014 focused on anti-war artists who left Russia—about 400 works. Historically in Russia, recognition often comes from the outside first. Sorokin had to leave Russia to be fully recognized there. Artists who stayed dissolved or were silenced. The same happened historically with Kabakov or Chuikov. The most successful Russian artists are often those who left. I am building this collection because when the next political shift comes, these artists will be essential to Russia's cultural story.
Lazareva: How do you explain this recurring pattern in Russian history? Why does this happen?
Guelman: Isolation is a major factor, rooted in how Russia is structured. Russia has historically been built as a rigid hierarchy, and its integration with the world went through that top-down pyramid.
For example, at the Edinburgh Festival, thousands of independent theaters participate. But Russia's representation was managed by the Ministry of Culture, which sent the Bolshoi Theatre every year. Instead of a hundred small, experimental troupes participating, a massive state institution arrived on a huge budget. That wasn't genuine integration. Real cultural integration happened almost exclusively through emigrants and exiles—from Chaadayev onward.
Now, perhaps for the first time, a genuine integration of Russian and European culture is taking place because thousands of creators are living and working directly in European cities like Berlin.
Historically, the state expels creators, then later reclaims them. In 2017 or 2018, I saw campaign billboards in St. Petersburg featuring Joseph Brodsky with the slogan "Brodsky is Ours!" The state persecutes artists, then turns them into official symbols after the fact.
Lazareva: Do you think it will always be this way?
Guelman: We don't know. The word "always" doesn't apply anymore. AI and global shifts could change the world completely over the next decade.
Lazareva: Does that future scare you?
Guelman: It excites me! Because I'm 64, I'm thrilled that I might live to see it. Scientific modeling using AI is accelerating progress by a factor of a hundred in certain fields. Consider cognitive amplification—soon, technology will augment human memory and language translation in the same way exskeletons augment physical strength. I want to be an active participant in how this impacts art, not just a bystander.
Lazareva: I observe an imbalance today. Our technological capacities are growing rapidly, but our moral and ethical development seems to be lagging behind—like a teenager whose bones outgrew their muscles. Are you concerned about what happens when people with unexamined ethics gain access to powerful new tools?
Guelman: That is a serious concern, and it's why organizations like OpenAI were originally founded as non-profits—to address the ethical responsibility of AI creators.
The core challenge is that you cannot enforce global boundaries. Christian ethics first clashed directly with modern science over genetic engineering, which is heavily regulated in the West but less constrained elsewhere. Responsible actors might adopt self-imposed restrictions, while others refuse to, gaining a competitive edge.
This is the core debate of transhumanism. Traditional ethics assumes the human being is the apex of creation. Transhumanism suggests humanity might be a transitional bridge to something else.
We also face a timeline mismatch. Look at Putin: in his mind, he views himself as a moral actor, but his framework belongs to the 19th century—a world of territorial conquest and rigid patriarchal roles. Meanwhile, others are contemplating 21st-century transhumanism. When people inhabit completely different century frameworks simultaneously, conflicts emerge.
Lazareva: You mentioned earlier that history's wheel doesn't turn backward. Do you feel a desire to accelerate that forward movement, or are you focused on your art?
Guelman: I try to focus strictly on what I can influence and avoid wasting energy on things I cannot control.
For example, before the recent elections in Moldova, I spent two months organizing efforts to inform people about the reality of the Putin regime, because I felt I could make a tangible difference there. But I don't waste time arguing over things outside my control.
Diversity of strategy is healthy in culture. There is no single mainstream culture anymore. The most compelling developments aren't happening in stadiums packed with 500,000 people; they are happening across a thousand small venues hosting 200 people each. Every group develops its own vision of tomorrow's art.
Mass culture is shifting into what I call a "new craftsmanship." Instead of mass production, you have extreme customization. In Tokyo, an entire street might consist of independent designer boutiques, each producing unique items for a small client base. Mass consumption is being replaced by niche, individualized creation.
This shift also addresses the fear that AI will eliminate jobs. While routine jobs will be automated, a vast array of creative roles will open up. People won't rely on a handful of global mega-brands; they will connect with independent creators who cater to specific communities.
Lazareva: We're meeting soon at the SlovoNovo forum, right?
Guelman: Yes. It's a forum dedicated to the future of Russian-language culture in exile, paired with readings, exhibitions, music, and performance.
Lazareva: I'm going there with Ivan Vyrypaev to stage a play that hasn't even been written yet! It feels like chaos, but I love working with him. He keeps saying, "Everything will be great."
Guelman: He's a genius.
Lazareva: How do you spot a genius?
Guelman: When Vyrypaev wrote Oxygen, it felt like the most authentic linguistic expression of my generation. I don't speak the way he writes, but I think the way he writes. He captured the spirit of an era.
Lazareva: How do you keep yourself grounded so you don't "turn to bronze" as you get older?
Guelman: Life usually steps in and delivers a reality check when I start taking myself too seriously.
In 2009, I was a member of the Civic Chamber running the Cultural Alliance project, trying to modernize the country through regional cultural centers. Governors were lining up to meet me. I was starting to turn to bronze, making political compromises for the sake of the project.
Then Pussy Riot performed in 2012. As a public official and museum director, I was the only one who publicly defended them, believing it was my duty to stand up for artists. Within three months, all my official connections were severed, pressure mounted, and I was ousted from the state system.
I'm grateful to Pussy Riot for that. Their action forced a clear line in the sand. It saved me from sinking into comfortable conformity. I don't know where I would be today if that hadn't happened.
Lazareva: You made that choice yourself. You couldn't stay quiet.
Guelman: It was a choice, yes. I didn't set out to get kicked out of the system, but when pushed, you follow your internal ethics.
Lazareva: That internal compass resets everything, and you start fresh. Thank you so much for this conversation, Marat. Let's agree that in 10 years, when you're still young, we'll do this again!
Guelman: It's a deal. Thank you, my dear.
Lazareva: Goodbye!
Dear viewers, I hope this conversation inspired you to shed whatever stale layers hold you back and stay open to the new. Don't forget to leave a comment and a like. Until next time!
