Exhibitions opening: The State Hermitage Museum, General Staff Building – 18 November 2003 The State Russian Museum, Marble Palace – 19 November 2004   From November 2003 to January 2004, an exhibition of video art by artists from the U.S., U.K., Netherlands and Israel will take place in two of the most distinguished Russian museums – the Hermitage and the Russian Museum. The goal of the festival is to present the best examples of contemporary video art to Russian audiences and to demonstrate how contemporary artists use new media technology to create outstanding works of art. The video installations shown in the Hermitage will be supplemented by the objects from the Hermitage collection. This will be the first time an international exhibition of video art of this caliber will take place in St. Petersburg. All of the participating artists are internationally renowned and have taken part in many international exhibitions and festivals; all have participated in the Venice Biennale, the oldest and most prestigious international forum of contemporary art. The following video-installations will be shown: Bill Viola (USA), The Greeting, 1995 - Hermitage Shirin Neshat (USA), Turbulent, 1998 - Hermitage KIMSOOJA (USA-So. Korea), A Needle Woman, 1999-2000 - Russian Museum Mark Wallinger (UK), Threshold to the Kingdom, 2000 – Russian Museum Aernout Mik (Netherlands), Territorium, 1999 – Russian Museum Uri Katzenstein (Israel), Home, 2001 – Russian Museum For the first time, these two outstanding Russian museums have combined their efforts to present new art to the Russian viewer. Various museum venues have been selected for this exhibition of video art: the General Staff Building (the new wing of the Hermitage), the Marble Palace, the Engineering Castle, the Stroganov Palace. The exhibitions will open November 18 and 19, 2003 and will continue until January 18, 2004. On the opening day of the exhibition – November 18, 2003 – the artists and leading art critics from Russia and abroad will participate in a symposium at the Hermitage Theater. A festival brochure and exhibition catalogs will be published. As a part of the festival, the PRO ARTE Institute is organizing an educational program on contemporary video art – lectures, presentations, video shows.