Ilya Oskolkov-Tsentsiper

Ilya Oskolkov-Tsentsiper
Oskolkov-Tsentsiper April 2014
Born	Moscow, Soviet Union
Residence	Moscow, London, New York City
Occupation	social designer and entrepreneur

Ilya Vladimirovich Oskolkov-Tsentsiper (born 30 September 1967, Moscow, USSR), social designer, media manager and entrepreneur, inventor, charismatic pioneer. Founder of Afisha magazine, and president of the Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design. He works and lives in Moscow.

In 1989 Oskolkov-Tsentsiper graduated in theatre history from the Lunacharsky State Institute for Theatre Arts Moscow (GITIS), today RATI, after which he completed a post-graduate course at the Cultural Politics Department, Université de Bourgogne, Dijon, France.

From 1989 to 1991, Ilya Oskolkov-Tsentsiper managed the sociological department at the Union of Artists of the USSR and worked as an art critic for Ogoniok magazine which achieved a record circulation of 4.6 million copies.

In 1990, together with a team of partners he set up ART-MIF (Moscow International Fair), the first international art fair in the Soviet Union, which ran for five years and held dozens of modern art exhibitions.

In 1993, Oskolkov-Tsentsiper was a leading member of the team that founded Matador Magazine, which popularized the new trend of Russian “intellectual glamour” featuring film, music, art, fashion and culture news.

In April 1999, Oskolkov-Tsentsiper teamed up with Andrew Paulson and Anton Kudryashov to found the highly influential Afisha magazine. Afisha had a profound effect on Moscow’s cultural and nightlife scene and broke new ground with its mix of informed commentary, listings and reviews.

Oskolkov-Tsentsiper brought together a team of young journalists, designers and photographers to create a unique Afisha style which had a major impact on Russian media. Many high-profile Russian artists made their first public appearances on Afisha’s front cover and the magazine popularised several new fashion trends – even introducing numerous new words into the Russian lexicon, from “deadline” to “hipster”.