“Business Is Jungle” Exhibition of the artist Helmut Koller

On April 11-12 the “Business Is Jungle” exhibition of the artist Helmut Koller, which was organized by the Volkhonka Art Projects gallery and sponsored by the Kroll detective agency and Architectural Heritage: Russian Manor House Fund, took place at the Architects’ Council of Russia (Granatny sub-street, 12). During the event 14 works of the most famous pop-art animalist, the Austrian artist Helmut Koller, were demonstrated for the first time in Moscow.


Helmut Koller was born in 1959 and was starting to work as a professional photographer of the Vienna Opera, but always dreamed of painting. In some time Helmut’s interest took over, and he has been paining enormous meter-and-a-half paintings of African animals with acrylic paints for two decades already. The unusual color scheme and brightness created the reputation of one of the world’s leading colorists for Koller. The works of the artist are kept in the collections of Duke Marlboro, the Swarowski family and Rosneft shareholders.


The director and co-founder of the Architectural Heritage: Russian Manor House Fund Igor Nikolsky practices reconstructing manor houses, including the Sukhanovo manor house of Volkonsky princes (XVIII-XIX centuries), as well as the Talyziny town mansion on Vozdvizhenka (XVII-XIX centuries; nowadays the Shchusev Museum of Architecture).

The Fund implements and finances events with the purpose of promotion and popularization of Russian architectural heritage topic; it also takes part in processing law and financial mechanisms ensuring preservation and restoration of cultural, historical and architectural heritage of Russia, supporting its inclusion into the economic, social and cultural life of Russia and making it available and attractive for Russian and foreign tourists. .


The Volkhonka Art Projects gallery is well-known for its exhibitions of Oriental and Western art at the leading museums of Moscow, such as All-Russian Museum of Applied and Decorative Arts, Shchusev Museum of Architecture, Manor House of Muraviev-Apostol, etc. The gallery and its art director Aleksey Volobaev have been studying the works of Helmut Koller since 2011 and have the right to demonstrate his works within the territory of Russia. This is the first solo exhibition of Koller in Russia.