Exhibitions of Contemporary Art in Moscow as a Space for Professional Communication and "the Third Place" in the Life of Citizens

The study is devoted to the study of the functions of exhibition spaces in Moscow, exhibiting contemporary art, in the context of the professional community and in the urban space. Exhibition spaces (galleries) will be understood as social and cultural spaces; at the same time, they have their own characteristics that distinguish them from classical museums. These features include the plasticity and transformability of the space, in which there is a constant change of expositions, along with which the professionals change. The problematic situation is primarily associated with the relevance of studying physical spaces in the context of socio-cultural places in people's lives in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the conditions of self-isolation and the closure of cultural institutions, many exhibition spaces were forced to move their activities online: online excursions, lectures, film screenings and even discussions were held, which, in principle, covers all areas of the gallery's activities as an institution, and the question of whether online can supplant physical space as such is especially acute. In the course of the research project, to describe the professional group, such concepts as signs of professionalization, precariousness of activity, market fragmentation, values ​​of the "creative class" (R. Florida) and "bobo" (D. Brooks), motives of activity and the process of professional communication on the subject were used. how much these and other aspects of professional activity are influenced by exhibition spaces. To consider the functions of exhibition spaces in the urban environment, the concepts of “third places” (R. Oldenburg), “non-places” (Z. Bauman), gentrification, creative city (C. Landry), cultural codes and cultural segregation of urban space (S. Zukin). The study used a qualitative methodology. 12 included observations were carried out in galleries of the city of Moscow of various types and with different geographic locations and 15 semi-structured interviews with specialists of the contemporary art market who work or had project experience in exhibition spaces. As a result of the study, it was revealed that the sites for exhibiting contemporary art in the city of Moscow at the moment do not perform the functions of gentrification, segregation or "third place" in the urban space. In rare cases, spaces actually perform the function of reproducing cultural codes in a city, and can also be characterized as “non-places”. In the context of the professional community, exhibition spaces and galleries play a critical role in maintaining offline market activity, in the existence and consolidation of the precarious activities of specialists and market fragmentation, and are also the most important places of professional communication for specialists. This research has theoretical and practical value. On the one hand, in the course of the study, interesting and new conceptual schemes and terms were applied to Moscow reality. On the other hand, the potential to develop galleries as a “third place” for creating urban communities, as well as the idea of ​​reproducing cultural codes into urban space and raising the level of creativity of the city can be used in urbanism and urban planning, as well as for gallery managers as an idea for development. their spaces and increase the audience by embracing the larger functions of the space.