Margo Grant Mounts Russian Art at Highline Loft Posted on June 20, 2014 by textgenie Hot opening in both senses in Chelsea Russian and Eastern European artists displayed Is the Russian crowd the best looking in New York? We’d say Yes, judging from Margo Grant’s latest Russian and Eastern European artists flash show opening at Highline Loft gallery at 508 West 26St last night, where both sexes seemed to us to combine beauty and individuality in record amounts, a combination which is synergistic.. So did their art, which isn’t fashion driven and although characteristically Beyond Berlin in approach it strives to meld pleasing aesthetics with individual expression in unpredictable and very personal ways. So the variety of paintings, photos and statuary presented was as usual huge, and the quality consistent, understandably given Margo’s central role in this artistic realm in New York with her directorship of MORA, the Museum of Russian Art ( http://www.moramuseum.org) at 80 Grand Street in Jersey City. We liked Slawek’s (Stanislaw Goc) photoreflections (images captured from sidewalk windows which combine ideas in a mysterious way) and his new departure to focus on All About Sex (“human desire is the fundamental motivation of all human action”); Oksana Prokopenko’s oversized soccer balls of colorful mosaic lit from within (“Genesis of Form” was the largest), not yet posted at her oksanapro.com site; and Alex G’s excitingly 360 degree distortions of NYC landscapes (see orbvista.com). Social movers and shakers at the party included man about town Douglas Dechert, who will be assisting Margo in the future, Drew de Carvalho who runs his The Voice of Australia in America, Kasia Bucskowska who writes columns, reviews and articles for Nova Djinnik and other Polish periodicals in New York, and has recently published In Prose, a collection of very short stories (Ungyve Press), Daria Gradusova, who ran the bar in her career role as a manager of community engagement at the Museum and elsewhere, and Yury Tatarinov, self described “adventurer” currently involved in real estate. TV producer Patrick Clark, hitherto a staple of these events which he helped mount, was kept from attending by responsibilities attendant on his new country mansion in Poughkeepsie. The exhibition runs from Wed to Fri and will close tonight (Jun 20 Fri) at 6pm or later, so there is still a chance to review items one has one’s eye on without the crowds and the heat – the too weak air conditioning slowed serious buying during the event. In that sense, commented Margo, it was “too hot!” Slawek took a long silent video weaving through the crowd without lingering https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qi4h-Xa21ck&feature=youtu.be