Artist Boris Zaporov talks with one critic who considered the exhibition "overshadowed" by his reserved works.
Hundreds of arts lovers will be flocking to the city's Manege Exhibition Hall throughout the month to admire the skill of dozens of artists from about twenty countries.
Apart from the traditional participants from Western Europe and the United States, The Second International "Dialogue" Arts Exhibition will be freshened by Mongol and Israeli artists as well as artists from the former Soviet republics.
Russian, Kyrgyz, Kazak and Estonian artists would like to reinstate the broken union between the former Soviet republics through what they call an "artists' dialogue."
Though the Dialogue focuses on unity between the participating countries, Dmitry Zagoulyaev, a St Petersburg art critic insists that most of the artists were a failure.
"To achieve their goal, the real language of art should have been depicted," he said. "The amateurs have failed even to show the difference between democracy and totalitarianism, by violating the basic laws of art," he said.
He said that, if the artists' aim had been to convey current problems in politics through art, then in his opinion they failed to get their message across.
"Perhaps this is the reason why the international exhibition seems to be overshadowed by artist Boris Zaporov's exhibition," lamented one visitor who was looking at this artist's works shown in the same hall.
As if in support of the visitor's comments Zaparov said, "I feel uncomfortable. It is as if the hall is putting pressure on me."
Mr Zaporov, a Russian immigrant living in Paris, has come back to Russia to conduct his first two exhibitions in Moscow and St Petersburg since fleeing the country fourteen years ago.
Comprising about 60 portraits, Zaporov's exhibition leaves one with an impression that the author is reserved, but a person whose message as portrayed through his works can be easily understood and shared by everyone.
"I am naturally a reserved person, and the portraits are a reflection of myself," he admitted.
The overwhelming message one gets from analyzing his work is that Zaporov is worried about the fate of the common man.
Through his portrait of a depressed woman, humiliated man and his environment, Zaporov shows the dark side of life. But the dark side which includes poverty, hunger and disappointments is always in harmony with nature.
"Woman sitting on a red chair" by Boris Zaporov.
"A Girl And the Environment," "Japanese Woman/Alila," "A Group Picture with a Monkey," "A Horse," and "A Village House" are some of the many portraits that reflect their author's nature, at least during his fourteen-year period out of Russia -- the time during which the portraits were painted.
However, other artists did not regard Zaporov as a threat. To them it was a chance to share in the creative genius of the great artist.
One of them was Ilona Borodulina with her cycle of four portraits named "Woman and Movies." Here she depicts her philosophy on the glory of feminism.
Yuri Yakovenko came from Belorus to show his "Archipelago" cycle of seven portraits, depicting what he calls "symbiosis of motives."