The AVC Charity Foundation was created at the initiative of Andrey Cheglakov – Russian scientist, businessman and art collector – in order to support and realise cultural projects. Since its inception, the Foundation has aimed to encourage specific artistic and cultural activities by helping established artists and new young talent in the fields of figurative art and music. AVC offers further support by disseminating the artists' work both in Russia and abroad.
Today, AVC Charity has gained international recognition, partly thanks to the regular organisation of thematic art exhibitions at major galleries in Russia and throughout the world; also through the charity's involvement in many official and collateral initiatives developed as part of the années croisées – Russia-France and Russia-Italy cultural exchange programmes.
Among the exhibitions organised to date are: « Snow Meridian » by Francisco Infante and Nonna Goriunova, at the Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow), "In the steps of Russian ballet", dedicated to Serge Diaghilev, in Auvers-sur-Oise (France), "The Paris School" at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts (Moscow) and many others.
Since 2010, the AVC Charity Foundation has co-organised the Annecy Classic Festival (Haute-Savoie, France), as well as acting as its principle patron. Since 2012, the Foundation has also helped to instigate a brand new festival of Russian classical music at Lucerne (Switzerland), in collaboration with the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra.
Among its activities, AVC places special importance on the support of young musicians, through sponsorship of diverse projects by the "Gnessin Virtuoses" under the direction of Mikhaïl Khokhlov, as well as financing CD recordings by young artists and creating grants to encourage new talent. The "Denis Antoine Prize" is one such initiative, set up in 2012 to reward the winner of the "Piano Campus" international competition for young pianists.
For the occasion of the "100th anniversary of Serge Diaghilev's Russian ballets" in Paris, the Foundation not only sponsored artistic events at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow, but also made available for public viewing previously unseen works from Andrey Cheglakov's private collection.
Similarly, in France, exhibitions of works by Maximilian Volochine and Sergei Chepik were brought to the public eye thanks to active sponsorship and artistic contribution from AVC, which provided both financial support and access to many documents and artworks from its private collection.
In January 2012, AVC Charity made a donation to the Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg: a collection of 848 postal envelopes decorated by distinguished artists from the Soviet Underground (including figures such as Ilya Kabakov, Dmitri Krasnopevtsev, Oscar Rabin and many others).
One of the major projects in the autumn of 2012 was an extensive exhibition around the work of Le Corbusier, held at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts (Moscow) in collaboration with La Fondation Le Corbusier.
For this exhibition commemorating the 125th anniversary of the great architect's birth, Jean-Louis Cohen's seminal book «Le Corbusier et la Mystique de l'URSS» was published in Russian for the first time, in its original version with corrections and additions.
So, through the influence of past and on-going projects, new artists are emerging and presenting their work to the public. In parallel, Russian and international art lovers alike are able to enjoy increasing access to world-class artistic masterpieces.
Andrey Cheglakov – Russian mathematician, entrepreneur and art collector – studied at Moscow University, where he was awarded a Doctor of Economics degree for his thesis. In the early '90s he worked on an original software conception, having received permission to design a game console called "Dendy" for the Russian market. Its huge popular success meant that "Dendy" quickly became a market leader. In 2002 he received the Russian State Prize for his techno-scientific research. For several years, he has been sponsoring a project for the creation of a top-level Russian sports car – MaRussia.
From his youth, he has been passionate about music and painting. Among his closest friends are leading figures in the world of music and culture: Denis Matsuev, Yuri Temirkanov, Valery Gergiev and Vladimir Spivakov, to name but a few.
A successful businessman, Andrey Cheglokov has developed his sponsorship activities with careful attention, respect and focus. He is aware that the role of patron assumes paramount importance today, in a world suffering from the erosion of core values.
In one of his interviews, Andrey Cheglakov highlights his views: "An artist creates values not capital. Capital is produced by businessmen. Art creates higher values. They are superior not because they are dearer than the others but because they have a different nature. That is why we cannot do without them".
