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Kirsten Luce for The New York Times 4. FRANK BRUNI Best known for Red October, a temporary, nonprofit art space she opened in an old Moscow chocolate factory, Maria Our Pulchritudinous Priesthood Baibakova took a break to get an M.B.A. By BEE SHAPIRO THE GREAT DIVIDE Published: July 24, 2013 5. Status and Stress On the first day of the Frieze New York art fair in May, Maria FACEBOOK

Baibakova hosted a dinner party at an Upper East Side house that TWITTER 6. 36 Hours in the Hudson Valley, New York was attended by billionaire collectors like Alejandro Santo Domingo GOOGLE+ and art players like Simon de Pury. SAVE 7. MAUREEN DOWD Time to HardDelete Carlos Danger Dressed in a white and green trellis EMAIL Related print gown by Rodarte, she moved SHARE GAIL COLLINS T Magazine: Russian Doll | around the house with a winning grin, 8. Moscow's New Art Doyenne (July Mick Jagger, Birthday Boy PRINT 15, 2010) brokering introductions. At one point, MORE IN FASHION & STYLE (17 OF 33 ARTICLES) she interrupted the dinner chatter to REPRINTS Scouting Report: PopUps, Sales and The Collection: A Fashion present Rashid Johnson and Sheree Events for t9h.e OWn eReookf topfs J, au Rlyiv 2al5 for Utilities App for the iPad Hovsepian, the husbandandwife artists whom she had Read More » A onestop destination for commissioned to create a limitededition print that was Times fashion given to guests as a party favor. coverage and the latest from the runways. “I’m really nervous, so forgive me,” Ms. Baibakova said, 10. Obama Says Income Gap Is Fraying U.S. Social Fabric Download It From the App Store raising her Champagne flute for a toast, before nodding toward Mr. Johnson and Ms. Hovsepian. “What’s a better Follow Us on Twitter Go to Complete List » Show My Recommendations Follow collaboration than a marriage?” @NYTimesfashion for fashion, beauty The fact that Ms. Baibakova is only 27 was barely remarked and lifestyle news and headlines. on that evening. As the oldest daughter of Oleg Baybakov, a Russian mining oligarch and real estate developer who is often seen with Mikhail Prokhorov, owner of the Brooklyn Nets, Ms. Baibakova has emerged as an influential player on the contemporary art scene.

She’s perhaps best known for Red October, a temporary, nonprofit art space she opened in an old Moscow chocolate factory in December 2008 through her company, Baibakov Art Projects. But Ms. Baibakova had been taking something of a break the last two years, www.nytimes.com/2013/07/25/fashion/maria-baibakova-is-finding-her-place-in-the-art-world.html?_r=0 1/3 8/6/13 Maria Baibakova Is Finding Her Place in the Art World - NYTimes.com honing her business acumen at Harvard Business School, from which she graduated in May with an M.B.A.

Just a few weeks back in the city and already her agenda was brimming with commitments. She is the strategic director for Artspace, an online artsales company, for which she was hosting the Frieze party, and is on the boards of various museums and galleries, including the Tate Modern in London.

“If anyone is to become Russia’s Peggy Guggenheim, it is Baibakova,” an article in The New Yorker said in 2010.

In that sense, she is among a young generation of Russian heiresses and czarinas who are seducing the art world with their lavish spending habits, including Dasha Zhukova, 32, and Ekaterina Rybolovleva, 24, who recently bought an island in Greece and whose father, Dmitry Rybolovlev, an avid collector, is among the richest men in the world.

Yet Ms. Baibakova wasn’t born into a world of silver spoons and caviar. Raised in Moscow in the final years of the crumbling Soviet Union, she recalls standing in a bread line when she was 3. At 5, she tasted her first banana. “It took me half an hour to eat it because I would bite it off in really, really small bites to get the taste out of it,” she said.

Things looked up after the fall of the Soviet regime. Though her father had an engineering degree, he plunged into entrepreneurship, stringing together deals big and small.

But the political situation in Russia at the time seemed tenuous. So when she was 10, she and her mother, Tatiana Broushlinsky, moved to the United States and settled in Fort Lee, N.J., where she excelled first in public school and then at the prestigious Dwight Englewood School, where she ran track and played basketball.

By the time she enrolled at Barnard, she had become passionate about art, not only majoring in art history, but also interning at Sotheby’s and the Mike Weiss Gallery in Chelsea.

She continued her arts education after college, with a oneyear master’s degree in London at the Courtauld Institute of Art, which she described as “antimarket leftist academia.”

Even so, she kept one foot in the commercial gallery world, as a consultant to Sotheby’s, the Gagosian Gallery and other institutions that were trying to tap into the sizzling Russian art scene. Though she was only 21 at the time, she had the social savvy to make connections.

“They needed an inbetween agent,” she said. “They didn’t have anyone older because the older folks wouldn’t have been educated in the West.”

It certainly didn’t hurt that her father’s business had flourished. By then, he had moved into real estate and made international headlines with largescale development and heady purchases, including a $13.5 million apartment at 80 Columbus Circle.

After her master’s, she formed Baibakov Art Projects to house her consulting contracts, arts blog and special undertakings like Red October, which showcased young Russian talents such as Dasha Krotova and bluechip Western artists like Luc Tuymans, a painter from Belgium.

And her social presence has risen, attending charity balls, art fairs and other Alist parties not only in Moscow, but also in New York and London.

For her 25th birthday, her father rented a multilevel restaurant in the meatpacking district and hired Snoop Dogg to perform. Guests included Anne Pasternak, Tobias Meyer and Jeff Koons.

Back at the Frieze party, Ms. Baibakova was clearly in her element.

“I’m excited to be back in the city,” she said, dark eyes shining, as she scanned the high flying scene for familiar faces.

She spotted Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld. “Vlad!” she called out, as he peeled away from his

www.nytimes.com/2013/07/25/fashion/maria-baibakova-is-finding-her-place-in-the-art-world.html?_r=0 2/3 8/6/13 Maria Baibakova Is Finding Her Place in the Art World - NYTimes.com date, Giovanna Battaglia, to exchange kisses. “Everything is perfect,” Mr. Roitfeld said.

A version of this article appeared in print on July 25, 2013, on page E7 of the New York edition with the headline: Finding Her Place In the Art World.

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