TUMBLEWEED

Central Exhibition Hall Manege. 1 Manege Sq. Until 28 October 2016

Cui Ruzhuo is one of the most expensive living Chinese artists. His works have been acquired by world's leading museums and private collections. Cui Ruzhuo is a head of the Chinese National Academy of Arts, and a master of calligraphy. He works in the traditional technique, the so-called Guohua, which involves the use of mascara and water colours on silk or paper. This autumn, Moscow audience gets a unique opportunity to view over 200 works by the artist, including his famous polyptychs spreading to up to six meters. All of the works presented at the Manege were created from 2011 up to present time.

The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts (Main Building). Until 30 October 2016

Within the framework of the cross-cultural year between Russia and Greece, the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts will host an exhibition dedicated to the depiction of man in various numismatic and glyptic objects dating from Classical Antiquity up to the Modern era. Visitors will be able to trace the evolution of artistic styles through these objects, as well as through the interpretations of this subject-matter by masters of various periods. The display also aims to demonstrate a continuous cultural and chronological succession and a close connection between pictorial aspects and mythology, religion, history, literature, and philosophy. Along with miniature numismatic masterpieces from two renowned collections of highest quality – those of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts and the KIKPE Foundation – the exhibition will feature ceramics dating from the Classical Antiquity, sculptures, archaeological findings from the Benaki museum (Athens) and from the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts.

All-Russian Decorative Art Museum. 3 Delegatskaya St. Until 30 October 2016

The exhibition will be held under the strategic program of All-Russian Decorative museum and "Property of Russia. Tradition for the Future ". The main focus of the exhibition will be on the artistic value of the works of lace XVIII-XXI centuries, which have no analogues in the world practice, the technique of their production, features of the construction of ornaments. The exhibition will present masterpieces of painting and drawing, collection of folk and city costumes from the museum collections, as well as rare photos and video documents from different eras.

All-Russian Decorative Art Museum. 3 Delegatskaya St. Until 30 October 2016

The All-Russian Decorative Art museum in conjunction with the Central Chess House of MM Botvinnik, exhibits chess from all over Russia and the world, made from a variety of materials.

Visitors can not only see the exhibits, but also play chess and watch a movie by Vsevolod Pudovkin and Nicholas Shpikovskogo "Chess Fever". 

National Centre for Contemporary Arts. 13/2 Zoologicheskaya St. Until 30 October 2016

The Possibility To Be Different presents the image of an artist simultaneously watching and reflecting, changing masks, culture codes, periods and aesthetic spaces. Using the techniques from previous art periods, he stands as a «double agent» - the one watching and the one being watched. He offers to solve the puzzle of a different reality, where the stranger space and personal space are intricately interwoven. The project includes artists from Germany, Spain, USA, Finland, France, and Russia. Video installations by such famous players on the international art scene as George Kuchar, Heinz Emigholz, Luther Price, Ming Wong, Anri Sala, Fernando Sanchez Castillo, Eija-Liisa Ahtila interact with projects by young Russian artists: Vladimir Logutov, Aleksey Korsi, and Nikolay Onischenko. In his work Negative Painting, Vladimir Logutov (Russia) fixes the positioning and dynamics of his hand in the process of painting. This is so-called “new painting”, which rejects itself by focusing not on the art work itself but on the process of its creation. The main protagonist of Anri Sala's (France) video work 1395 Days Without Red, reenacts the routes of Sarajevo’s residents under siege, when they were forced to constantly evaluate the situation from the point of view of safety in the state of emergency. On their personal journey to the collective past the artist and his heroine live through other people’s experiences.

Lumiere Brothers Center for Photography. 3/1 Bolotnaya Emb. Until 30 October 2016

Valentin Khukhlaev (1916-2010) was a photo correspondent of the major Soviet news agency TASS for over 50 years. He made around a thousand photo stories on assignment of the Agency. Photographic archive of active and energetic Khukhlaev stands out by its encyclopedic character. From 1946 onward, he captured postwar recovery of the country, its industrial and agricultural advancement, Moscow festivals, foreign trips and a lot more that made up life of the big country. However, V. Khukhlaev puts an emphasis on motorsports events, aviation and navy holidays, car manufacturers and transport - everything related to the topic of movement. Dynamics, speed, risk make up the driving force of his photography, revealing most the photographer’s character. The exhibition puts together series shot during the photographer’s travels around the world: early soviet cruises around Europe in 1957 and 1958 and trips to Africa. Apart from 100 vintage and modern prints, the exhibition features original artist’s photo-collages and photo-stories, collection of magazine and newspaper publications, and video footage of sports evets. 

VDNH. Pavilion 75 (2nd Floor). Until 30 October 2016

 Everyone has heard the saying "Moscow never sleeps." We are used to Moscow always being in motion, filled with people, cars, and the buzz of business — everyone always rushing to get somewhere. But what is Moscow like when it wakes up under the first rays of the sun? How does its day begin? The exhibition will have 50 photos of our favourite city on display which show it as you have never seen it before — early in the morning, with no people, or cars, and fully relaxed, as it meets the first rays of the sun. The authors of the photos are young professionals; artists who have shared those unforgettable dawn hours with the city and touched upon the mystery of Moscow's awakening, when everything familiar is presented in a new, and even somewhat mysterious light. 

Center Mars. 5 Pushkarev Lane. Until 31 October 2016

This exhibition is an experiment in which street artists, digital artists and illustrators - Nootk (Vladimir Gupalov), Misha Most, Aesthetics (Petro/Slak), Pokras Lampas, Aber, Alexey Kio & Ivan Benr, JJ - will appear for the audience in a specific meta form. Their works will be broadcasted in two realities - in the virtual world created on the Samsung Gear VR, and in real space of MARS Center. This immersion allows visitors to feel themselves as the artists during the creative process. Special application for the VR headsets helps viewers to dive into virtual reality. It's easy not only to guide the review in any direction by simply turning the head, but also track artist's choice of tools and brushes. The collaboration of street art and digital technologies brings the opportunities of artistic expression to a differently new level.

Multimedia Art Museum. 16 Ostozhenka St. Until 5 November 2016

Pino Pinelli (b. 1938) started his career as an artist relying on the classical set of media. In 1963 he moves to Milan (and has been based there since then): he is drawn into lively discussions involving such masters as Lucio Fontana, Piero Manzoni, Enrico Castellani. In the early 1970s he creates the Monochromes and Topologies series, and leads the movement called Analytical Painting (the term was coined Filiberto Menna). In 1976, having sensed the spirit of the time, he arrives at the «dispersion» of the painted artwork — this is the traditional interpretation of Pinellini’s method. He takes up painting in small forms, placing canvases very close to each other, as if it were a larger painting dispersed in space. The wall loses is neutral status in this process being transformed into one of the main characters which can carry the elements of pure tones, now in the form of wrinkles and creases, and then of clots, or strict linear shapes, or fractals, independent, yet gathered along a slightly curving trajectory which seems to imitate the gesture of the sower. Pinellini’s works are restless painted bodies which, oscillating, move thorough space in large and small groups. An alarming incompleteness and viscosity is felt in them. They are tactile, they physically emanate the vibration of light and broadcast emotions through open bright colors.

Ruarts Gallery. 10 1st Zachatyevsky Lane. Until 5 November 2016

RuArts Gallery presents the first solo show by Marat Danilyan, also known as Morik, within the framework of II Biennale of street art ARTMOSSPHERE. Morik is artist from Novosibirsk, one of the most famous and impressive figures in the contemporary Russian graffiti and street art world in the recent years, organizer of Paint Methods graffiti festival and his own graffiti agency. Morik created about 20 new works made in different techniques including both figurative and abstract compositions for the show Balancing Between. Not aiming be confined to specific themes and concepts, Morik focused on the process of creation. The artist picks random strangers from the streets as heroes of his paintings and endows them with the characters he needs, abstracting from a particular individual. The artist considers collage as more favorable media that allows him to combine different techniques and materials easily: spray paint, acrylic, pastel, cardboard, paper. Morik's multilayer compositions influenced articulation of a unique and distinctive style of the artist. His detailed collage works resemble colorful digital reality, which tightly surrounded us all around. 

11.12 Gallery, Winzavod. 1, 4th Syromyatnichesky Lane. Until 6 November 2016

In his new project "Village" Rinat Voligamsi uses the common motif of rural life. What could be more familiar and simple than the image of pastoralists? However, the artist has mixed an unimaginable cocktail of the familiar, cherished images, bold absurdity insights and brand retrofuturistic manners. Despite of the irreality of the form, meaning and message of the works are on the surface and remain accessible. New Voligams's artworks as usual are monochrome, meticulously accurate and meaningful. There are paintings, metal objects and installations on the exhibition. A long-awaited premiere of the "Village" -eponymous installation and objects by artist. Welded from rusty metal different size houses, barns, places of worship and indefinable constructions in harmony with the pictures in color and transform the gallery space into a wonderful parallel world.

The State Museum of Oriental Art. 12A Nikitsky Boulevard. Until 6 November 2016

The State Museum of Oriental Art presents a major solo exhibition of one of the most successful and internationally recognised Japanese graphic designers and artists. Born in 1936, Tadanori Yokoo began his career as a stage designer for avant garde theatre in Tokyo. In the late 1960s he became interested in mysticism and psychedelia, deepened by travels in India. Because his work was so attuned to 1960s pop culture, he has often been (unfairly) described as the "Japanese Andy Warhol" or likened to psychedelic poster artist Peter Max, but Yokoo's complex and multi-layered imagery is intensely autobiographical and entirely original. By the late 60s he had already achieved international recognition for his work and was included in the 1968 "Word & Image" exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The current exhibition includes his installations, cartoons and posters designed for The Beatles, Earth and Miles Davies.

State Darwin Museum. 57 Vavilova St. Until 6 November 2016

This large exhibition project will occupy two floors of the exhibition complex of the State Darwin Museum and conclude multiyear trips of the Bureau of Creative Expeditions around exotic countries of Southeast Asia. The works of art created in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam will be presented at one cultural platform for the first time. Beautiful works of applied arts from the funds of the State Museum of Oriental Art; items from the funds of the State Darwin Museum and original objects from expeditions will reveal the greatness of colorful diversity of ASEAN countries. The “All Colors of Asia” exhibition at the State Darwin Museum will conclude a three-year creative expedition of Russian artists to ten Southeast Asian countries. The halls of the State Darwin Museum will present a great collection of artworks, many of which weren’t included in the catalogue, as well as iconic items from the collections of the State Darwin Museum, the State Museum of Oriental Art and some private collections.

Multimedia Art Museum. 16 Ostozhenka St. Until 13 November 2016

The Russian avant-garde of the twentieth century is a unique phenomenon not only in Russian, but in world culture. The amazing creative energy accumulated by the artists of this great age is still providing nourishment for artistic culture today and all who have dealings with the art produced by Russian Art Nouveau. Alexander Rodchenko was indisputably one of the main generators of creative ideas and the general spiritual aura of the age. Painting, design, theatre, cinema, typography and photography, all areas invaded by the powerful talent of this strong, handsome man, were transformed, opening up radically new paths of development. The early 1920s was an «intermediate age», to quote Viktor Shklovsky, one of the finest critics and theoreticians of the day, a period when, albeit briefly, illusively, there was a resonance between artistic and social experiment. It was at this time, 1924, that photography was invaded by Alexander Rodchenko, already a well-known artist with the slogan «Our duty is to experiment» placed firmly at the centre of his aesthetic. The result of this invasion was a fundamental change of ideas about the nature of photography and the role of the photographer. Conceptual thinking was introduced into photography. Instead of just being the reflection of reality, photography also became a device for the visual representation of dynamic intellectual constructions.

Multimedia Art Museum. 16 Ostozhenka St. Until 13 November 2016

MAMM presents an exhibition by the legendary international art movement ZERO, as part of the Days of Düsseldorf in Moscow. The end of the Second World War heralded an unprecedented burst of artistic activity throughout Germany. After experiencing one of the most terrible wars in the history of mankind, artists, writers and philosophers felt the need to re-examine this tragedy, to break free from the legacy of the past and revive modernist and Bauhaus concepts dominant before the Nazis came to power. Düsseldorf’s convenient location and proximity to Paris, Amsterdam, Antwerp and Brussels facilitated its development as a leading international cultural and economic centre in postwar Europe. Group ZERO first appeared in Düsseldorf in 1957. Founding fathers of the movement Otto Piene and Heinz Mack were later joined by Günther Uecker. The word ‘zero’ in the group’s name in no way symbolised negation. Rather it was a reference point, a zone of silence and vacancy in which a new world filled with hope and light could evolve. By the early 1960s many artists and philosophers arrived at ‘point zero’: Maurice Merleau-Ponty explored ‘zero space’ and Roland Barthes ‘writing degree zero’, while Yves Klein unveiled an exhibition entitled ‘The Void’ and John Cage began work on the music of silence. In 1963 Otto Piene, Heinz Mack and Günther Uecker issued a manifesto entitled ‘ZERO is the Silence. ZERO is the Beginning’.

Moscow Museum of Modern Art. 10 Gogolevsky Boulevard. Until 13 November 2016

Moscow Museum of Modern Art is pleased to present a solo exhibition of the world famous sculptor Stephan Balkenhol (b. 1957)—the first major Russian show to span the artist’s entire career. For over three decades Stephan Balkenhol has been among the most acclaimed contemporary sculptors in the world. His works are in public and private collections in Frankfurt, Bremen, Karlsruhe, Hamburg, Copenhagen, London, Paris, Johannesburg, Hague, New York and Chicago among other cities. Sculptures and Reliefs features the artist’s sketches, as well as many of his complete works. Continuing the European tradition of the wooden sculpture that dates back to the Middle Ages, Stephan Balkenhol carves his sculptures from a wide range of woods including wawa, cedar and fir, without any assistance. His human figures are never polished to waxy smoothness and artifice: like humans they would not be themselves without imperfections. The rough surfaces and cuts create a sense of a life force hidden inside the figures of seemingly apathetic humans—an evidence of the artist’s love of and faith in humanity.

The Pushkin State Arts Museum (Main Building), 12 Volkhonka St. Until 13 November 2016

The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts is hosting a major exhibition dedicated to the art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778), an Italian engraver, architect, researcher, decorator, and collector of Ancient Roman objects. The display will include more than 100 etchings by Piranesi, engravings and drawings by his predecessors and followers, plaster casts, medals, books, models from the collection of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, the Cini Foundation (Venice), the Schusev State Museum of Architecture,  the Russian Academy of Fine Arts Museum, and other collections based in Russia and Western Europe. The works of the predecessors and the followers of the Italian master will help visitors get a better understanding of how Piranesi’s artistic personality was formed, how his art influenced the following generations of artists and of the role of his legacy in Russia. Piranesi’s art inspired the architects of Catherine II’s court – Giacomo Quarenghi, Charles Cameron, Vincenzo Brenna; as well as masters of Russian Avant-garde – Ivan Leonidov, Konstantin Melnikov, Yakov Chernikhov. This art still continues to impress its admirers with its sophistication: a contemporary Russian artist Valeriy Koshlyakov will display an artwork he has created exclusively for this exhibition.

Tretyakov Gallery. 10 Lavrushinsky Lane. Rooms 49-54. Until 13 November 2016

The aim of the project — to tell the public about the history of relations between the two dynasties. In the halls of the gallery will be presented the archive documents of Russia and Monaco, specific prints, paintings and sculptural portraits.

The exhibition is organized in collaboration with the Federal Archives Agency of Russia, the State Archive of the Russian Federation, the Grimaldi Forum, the New National Museum of Monaco

The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts (Main Building). Until 13 November 2016

Mezzotint (from Italian ‘mezza tinta’ – halftone), also called black manner, is a method of engraving a metal plate. This technique was invented in 1640s by a German master Ludwig von Siegen (1609 – circa 1680), and eventually improved by Prince Rupert of the Rhine (1619 – 1682) and portraitist Abraham Blooteling (1640 – 1690). At the beginning, the black manner developed in the Netherlands and Germany, but later came to England, where it became the most popular engraving technique. English printmakers of the second half of the 18th century used mezzotint mainly to reproduce portraits. The expressive potential of the black manner allowed artists to create engravings with rich combinations of semitones proper to paintings. No other printing technique of the 18th century required such labor input as mezzotint: it took nearly six months only to prepare a metal plate for a proof. After a long process of handling the copper plate with a so-called ‘rocker’ – a metal tool for engraving – its surface became roughened and allowed to achieve deep black velvety shades in the print. The spaces of the plate that were supposed to give lighter shades in the print were thoroughly polished – the contact of these parts of the plate with the paper was limited, leaving only a slight tone of ink when placed on a sheet of paper under the printing press. Thus, gravers achieved the necessary gradual transition between light and shade.

Art4 Gallery. 4 Khynovskiy Tupik. Until 17 November 2016

Since the mid-1950s, Ilya Kabakov and other non-conformist artists actively collaborated with children's book publishers. The artist designed more than 70 books and several children's magazines during his work as an illustrator. Most of the exhibited works are by Ilya Kabakov, created for Anatoly Markush’s books like "Masters Made" and "ABC ...", put out by the publishing house The Kid. "A B C..." is a children's book about engineering, made as a hornbook. This piece of work by Ilya Kabakov reveals his talent in one of the most difficult mediums: children's illustration. It requires an artist's simplicity, readability of images, and adaptation for children’s perception. Simultaneously, it requires the utmost skill in creating a miniature of the finished product. Ilya Kabakov's work is a radiant example of children's picture books.

Tretyakov Gallery, 10 Krymsky Val. Until 20 November 2016

The Tretyakov Gallery is preparing a large-scale monographic exhibition of Ivan Aivazovsky (1817-1900), one of the best-known and most popular painters in Russia. His art includes the themes that touched many generations of artists: the attempts to depict infinite, limitless spaces, the desire to capture the ever-changing nature in a given moment of time. From the large number of works created by Aivazovsky (based on his own estimate, approximately 6000), the exhibition presents about 100 paintings and 50 graphic works. The curators’ selection will allow the viewers to see the best examples of Aivazovsky paintings: seascapes, battle scenes, graphics works. The exhibition will display simultaneously four most significant paintings of the artist: “The Rainbow” (1873), “The Black Sea” (1881, both from Tretyakov Gallery), “The Ninth Wave” (1850), “The Wave” (1889, both from State Russian Museum). For the first time, the art lovers will see the large format painting “On the shores of the Caucasus” (1885, Tretyakov Gallery) that has never been on show before. The documentary section will introduce Aivazovsky as a patron of arts, the first honorary citizen of Theodosia. The exhibition will also include models of ships, compasses, globes, telescopes.

Moscow Museum of Modern Art. 25 Petrovka St. Until 27 November 2016

The Moscow Museum of Modern Art presents a joint exhibition of the landscape painter Vladimir Khamkov and photographer Alexander Strakh entitled RUSSIA — PARALLEL REALITY. The project aims at showing the diversity of the techniques and means of expressiveness of each of the authors, as well as offers an opportunity to penetrate the artists’ world and feel the contrasts in their works. Vladimir Khamkov is one of the most prominent masters representing modern Vladimir school of landscape painting. His works are a result of his contemplation of the Russian classical landscape and communication with the surrounding world. Khamkov is not only watching nature, but he also studies it subtly noticing and depicting in his landscapes its various transitional states: from day to night, from a warm September autumn to cold November season, from light to shadow. In his sketches and big canvases one can sense traditions and techniques of the impressionism, as well as predominance of pastel colors. In the artist’s palette there are colors which are most preferable for the artist. One of such colors is lilac. In the art world of Khamkov it becomes both a color reflection of the reality and a color sign of his imagination. The main theme in the creative work by Alexander Strakh is an interaction of a man with the nature of all things. Each of us affects the surrounding world and creates his personal living environment, which in its turn, influences us too. It can change, subdue, re-adjust and sometimes destroy a personality. Eventually, all the communication processes between the two very complex organisms — a man and environment — form a closed, integral system. As a result of this interaction there appear ecological problems and the pollution of the environment: they are very significant in the work of Strakh. He seeks and finds the aesthetics in this destructive interaction.

Pop/Off/Art Gallery. Winzavod. 1, 4th Syromyatnichesky Lane. Until 4 December 2016

Pop/off/art gallery is honoured to present an exhibition of works by Andris Eglitis, turning into the artist’s first solo show in Russia. Eglitis is recognised as a prominent figure amongst the young generation of Latvian artists, recently commissioned to create work for the Latvian National pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2015. The artist, celebrated for his installations comprising paintings and objects, will exhibit works from the recent years, major part of which were made specially for the Moscow debut. Andris Eglitis is an artist whose paintings make a direct emotional appeal. Realistic, yet deprived of a narrative, they are filled with remarkable depth of an image, leading a viewer all the way to the classical grand narratives from what seems like a regular landscape, still life or an everyday scene. A physical dimension of Eglitis’ works is derived from philosophical dichotomy of artificial and organic. In the words of the artist painting stands for “creation of an illusory space, that is connected to reality and yet is secluded from it”. Through the images of installations and objects mounted beforehand, Andris Eglitis constructs both a physical space and a space within a canvas, blurring the line between mediums. To the artist painting is a bridge between the mind and the matter, it fits into spaces while preserving individual message of the artist.

Regina Gallery. Winzavod. 1, 4th Syromyatnichesky Lane. Until 4 December 2016

Mikhail Ovcharenko is the new director of Regina. Now, it's his responsibility to take care of and grow the gallery's many fruits, as he encourages everyone to get out of their dull houses, workshop and offices and color their daily life with “Tutti Frutti”. It's a bright and bold mix. It's an exhibition where you can meet all of the gallery's artists. Their names are on the lips of everyone in the global art world. Whatever you can imagine, you will see it come true! The visual side of the exhibition reflects the ideas of the new exhibition program of Regina. “Tutti Frutti” stands for a combination of associations, different meanings, various approaches towards art and the aesthetics that the gallery's artists embody in their works. Regina intends to construct this “Tutti Frutti” exhibition into an exquisite, multifaceted fruit cocktail. This cocktail will be full of the contemporary artists’ fruits with their wonderful and unforgettable notes and flavors. There will be lots of new and unexpected things. The gallery is focused on the education of its visitors, so we're not afraid of presenting eccentric and profound art or resorting to unusual exhibition strategies. The new Regina is like a garden, where ripe fruits become juicy and delicious.

Osnova Gallery, Winzavod. 1, 4th Syromyatnichesky Lane. Until 4 December 2016

In “Lonely Narcissus” the key artistic ambition of Dou is to merge all the processes that constitute his self-identification — both as a human-being and as an artist — in a singular hyper-process. In this ideal super-process the actions performed by Dou-the-Artist will be indivisible from the actions of Dou-the-Human in respect to both their conceptual and mundane components. The unwanted division between public and private life will be also eliminated. Consequently, everything that is to be happening with Dou himself will be simultaneously real and dreamlike, important and unimportant, pronounced and disclosed; simultaneously relevant and irrelevant to life and art merged together. The actual biography of Oleg Dou at some point will begin to convert into mythology in real time. Real characters that once contributed to the peculiar formation of Dou’s identity — as if to be commemorated, or on the contrary, in order to be punished — will be turned into mutants by the artist himself. With the help photography, sculpture and installation Dou will turn these people into magical creatures, various colour swatches and rags of faded sensations. Everything here will be shameless and beautiful. To love. Unicorns. Skin. Hatred. Berries and beauty-spots. Pain and porcelain. Shady blue… Everything here will be simultaneously Dou.

Moscow Museum of Modern Art. 10 Gogolevsky Boulevard. Until 4 December 2016

Moscow Museum of Modern Art and the AVC Charity Foundation present a solo exhibition of Mikhail Karasik (born 1953): Constructivism and Other Things. Mikhail Karasik is an ideologist, leading theoretician and practitioner of the artist’s book. He is also known as a researcher into this country’s art in the 1910s—30s. Mikhail Karasik’s researching, popularizing and teaching activities are inseparably bound up with his creative work, determining its authorial character and the reflex form of «art about art». The theme of his works is the artistic reality of the Russian avant-garde, a phenomenon that has not lost its historical and artistic relevance, with its own ideas, questions, myths and heroes. The exhibition presents more than 20 original art objects, including books, installations, lithographs, collages and films. Each of these works is a major complex project, not only in its means of execution (printing by the artist himself, unique techniques, the use of materials unusual for books), but also in its concept. For Mikhail Karasik, the artist’s book is a method of reflecting upon personal experience in which the avant-garde serves not only as a theme, but also as the subject of an original statement. The artist quite often gives material form to the art-historian’s word, changing places with him, as it were. Making virtuoso use of «ready-made images» — photographs, blueprints, documents, objects, paintings, drawings, books — Karasik subjects them to semantic and plastic processing, attempting by artistic means to find answers to complex and ambiguous questions in the history of Soviet art. The central subject of the exhibition is Constructivism: Mikhail Karasik’s visual researches on the theme of the transition from Constructivism to Neo-Constructivism, the struggle with the Neo-Classical, reflection on the situation of Constructivist edifices in the present-day city. The exhibition will also feature works devoted to Kazimir Malevich (the project To the Affirmer of the New Art) and to Malevich’s friend and associate Mikhail Matiushin and his legendary Colour Handbook (Colour Is Optics and Black Colour + Optics), as well as works that contain the artist’s reflection on the projections of «things Soviet» in our contemporary life, their metaphysical significance and metamorphoses in the conditions of a changing world.

Garage Museum of Contemporary Art. Gorky Park. Until 9 December 2016

Garage Museum presents the first major survey show in Russia of the Slovenian art collective Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK), developed by the Moderna galerija in Ljubljana. The exhibition traces key events from 1980 to 1992—concerts, shows, theatrical productions, performances, guerrilla actions, public proclamations—by the four core groups that comprised NSK. In 1992, partly in response to the breakup of Yugoslavia, the groups ceased working as a collective and launched the “NSK State in Time,” a utopian formation which describes itself as “the first global state of the Universe.” This first exhibition of the NSK collective is placed within the economic and sociopolitical context of the 1980s, a turbulent decade that preceded the collapse of the old world order and heralded the ever-increasing reach of capitalism. As a unique, self–organized alliance formed in response to this situation, NSK gave an atistic proposal for a different system and a different type of institution, developing its own principles of organization, economy, and terminology for the collective’s artistic practices. The proposal they put forward challenges the simplistic binary opposition of socialist versus capitalist ideology, marking NSK as a global cultural phenomenon transcending its specific time and space.

The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts (Main Building). Until 11 December 2016

It is for the first time in history that 11 famous artworks by Raphael leave the Uffizi Galleriy and the Palatine Gallery in Italy. The exhibition includes 8 paintings and 3 drawings - among them the legendary Raphael's self-portrait (1506), a pair of portraits of Agnolo Doni and his wife Maddalena Doni (1506), The Madonna del Granduca (1505), and The Ecstasy of Saint Cecilia (1516-1517). The theme of the exhibition is human representation in portraits or self-portraits by the celebrated Renaissance painter. Make sure you buy tickets in advance online or come to the museum on a working day in the morning to avoid long queues.

VDNH. Pavilion 67: Karelia. Until 12 December 2016

The main character of the exhibition is the city changing rapidly during the 20th century. Municipal transport is one of the most vivid features of the time. Back in the 1930s horse-drawn carriages neighbored cars, trams, and bullock carts on the streets. During that time a brand new mode of transportation, the metro, appeared in Moscow, which opened an underground world for the Muscovites. The image of the city changed in the postwar years. Horses were finally replaced by cars that grew in number year by year. A collection of models of passenger cars, buses, trolleybuses, trams, and special-purpose vehicles (fire trucks, patrol cars, ambulances, post-office cars, and trucks) represents the timeline of Russian car industry development. Photos made by outstanding masters (Jakow Khalipov, Mark Markov-Grinberg, and Naum Granovsky) and picturesque compositions (Alexander Labas, Yuri Pimenov, Boris Rybchenkov, Baqi Urmançe, and other artists) will supplement this part of the exposition. Children's toys created on the basis of prototypes of real cars, posters appealing to treat municipal transport with care and to buy raffle tickets, the first traffic lights, fare boxes, and the markings of metro footbridges — all these are features of their time and can tell a lot about the past epoch.

Tretyakov Gallery, 10 Krymsky Val. Until 25 December 2016

“Collected Works”. World of literature of Moscow sculptors” is the fifth exhibition project within the framework of the Tretyakov Gallery’s long-term program “The Museum Open to All.” 

The exhibition of sculptures, which can be “read” with hands, is addressed primarily to those who cannot see the works of art, as well as all those who love sculpture. The exhibition will include about 30 sculptures, 30 medals, books (including books in Braille) and records of literary texts.

The sculptures and medals are provided for Tretyakov Gallery by the sculptors or their heirs. These sculptures are not specially designed for the blind; they are independent works selected for the exhibit by the curators in the artists’ workshops.

Underground Printing Press of 1905-1906 Exhibition Centre. 55 Lesnaya St. Until 31 December 2016

2016 year marks the anniversary in the history of Russian parliamentarism: 110 years ago, on April 27, 1906 the State Duma of Russia began work. It was the first real step towards the democratisation of the country, participation of the people in the power.The exhibition presents more than 200 campaigns, satirical and documentary post cards issued by various private publishing houses commissioned by the political organizations and parties. As a rule, they were printed on the form of the Universal Postal Union. Most of the postcards were published anonymously, often by photo-method. Cards presented at the exhibition were made in a wide range of techniques: printing on paper, photo-printing, stencil drawings. They are not only works of art of graphic printing, but also an invaluable resource for understanding the complicated political processes and events of Russian history, 1905-1907.

Bakhrushin State Theatre Museum. 31/12 Bakrushina St. Until 31 December 2016

The name of Karl Valts is well known to people of theatre and specialists. Chief machinist and stage designer of the Moscow Imperial Theatres. Magician and wizard, as he was called in Russia. “Russian Cagliostro”, as he was called in Paris. The man who created during 65 years remarkable stage designs not only for Bolshoi, Maly and Novy theatres, but also for the enterprises of Lentovsky, Diaghilev, the Moscow Art Theatre. The man who carried the audience into the magical and alluring world of the stage. Karl Valts, thanks to his exceptional energy and love for the theatre, became the informal art leader, taking the responsibility for keeping the audience’s interest to the performances of the Bolshoi Theatre in the second half of the XX century. Admirer of Impressionism, Valts tried to make at the Bolshoi the impressionistic set design before K. A. Korovin and A. Y. Golovin. Owning a broad and deep knowledge of the stage-box space, Valts freely worked with picturesque scenery, opening in it the internal energy of the dynamic transformations and changes behind the traditional static of natural or architectural background, and these opportunities were often perceived just as miracles and magic, so precisely and almost instantly Valts produced the changes in a performance. Such decoration may be defined as a dynamic that will become an integral part to the theatrical performance in the XX century.

The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts (19th and 20th Century European and American Art Building). Until 8 January 2017

The concept of an exhibition of Albert Marquet’s (1875–1947) works was conceived and fulfilled by the curators of Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris as a monographic research on the oeuvre of this renowned French artist.  The exhibits – from the early “Algerian” studies up to the later Marquet’s paintings depicting views of Parisian quais and squares – come from European and American museums and private collections. The exhibition hosted by the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts will be completed with some materials on Marquet’s travel to Russia and his impressions. The display will also include artworks created by the Vkhutemas and Vkhutein alumni of the 1920s, members of the “13” group, and the “Circle of Artists” group from Leningrad, who praised Marquet’s oeuvre and implemented similar aesthetic principles in their cityscapes of Moscow and Leningrad. Albert Marquet formed his artistic talent in the late 19th – early 20th century, during the period of flourishing of Parisian artistic life. The artist had a close friendship with the Fauves – Henri Matisse and André Derain. He stood out among the Fauves who were famous for using bold colors and simplified forms. Marquet’s peculiar and original technique consisted in combining the plasticity of dynamic and unchained brushstrokes and a harmonious palette with a range of complex color schemes.

Bakhrushin State Theatre Museum. 31/12 Bakrushina St. Until 10 January 2017

According to the recollections of friends and colleagues, David Borovsky (1934 – 2006) didn’t like to quote himself. And we won't do it either. David's son Alexander has prepared this exhibition in memory of his father. David Borovsky was born in 1934 in Odessa. He studied as the Kiev Art School and worked in Kiev theathres first as an artist, and later as an artistic director. In 1967-1968 held a position of chief artist at the Moscow Drama Theatre named after Konstantin Stanislavsky. Since 1969 designed the productions of the Moscow Drama Theatre at Taganka. Most significant works include Mother after Maxim Gorky, Rush Hour by Jerzy Stawiński, The Dawns Here are Quiet after Boris Vasiliev’s story, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, The Exchange after Yuri Trifinov’s story, The Master and Margarita after Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel, Crime and Punishment after Dostoyevsky’s novel, The Suicide by Nikolai Erdman and Euripides’s Medea.

VDNH, Pavilion 1 Central. Until 10 January 2017

The exhibition is part of the Cosmonauts: Birth of the Space Age project that made a splash last year in the UK. The idea was initially conceived by the Science Museum in London back in 2011, and its supervisors managed to get together quite a unique collection thanks to cooperation with the ROSIZO Russian State Museum and Exhibition Centre, including the original landers of Vostok 6 and Voskhod 1, an engineering model of Lunokhod 1, and the personal belongings of Sergei Korolev and Yuri Gagarin. After four years of preparations, Cosmonauts: Birth of the Space Age was opened in autumn of 2015 and was a “true miracle” according to The Daily Telegraph. The tickets even sold out several months before the exhibition opened. And today, the Polytechnic Museum offers all VDNH visitors the chance to see this wonderful collection. By the way, many of the exhibits (like the spacesuits the first cosmonauts used, landers, interplanetary landers and rare archive documents) have never left the walls of secret organisations. The Russian exhibition is based mainly upon the British concept, but it also has some more interesting exhibits and is notable for its bold colour scheme and artistic layout. Besides, this 'cosmic' exhibition is hosted by one of the most remarkable buildings of the Russian capital, i.e. VDNH Pavilion No. 1. This 100-meter high (including the spire) building is right in line with classical Russian Empire stylistic traditions, and its closest equal in terms of style is the famous Admiralty tower in St Petersburg. 

The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts (Main Building). Until 10 January 2017

The display will include nearly 20 paintings by major Dutch masters of the Golden Age – Pieter de Hooch, Gabriel Metsu, Frans van Mieris the Elder, Richard Brakenburg, Pieter Janssens Elinga, along with furniture and arts and crafts objects made of gold, silver, porcelain, and glass, all of which constituted an essential part of a burgher’s house and an object of their owners’ passion and vanity. The exhibits will come from the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts and other Russian and Western European museums and private collections.

The Moscow Kremlin Museum (The Patriarch’s Palace and the Assumption Belfry). Until 11 January 2017

The Moscow Kremlin Museums introduce an exhibition “Elegance and Splendour of Art Deco. The Kyoto Costume Institute, Jewelry Houses Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels”. It will be the first time when the collection of women’s clothing by haute couture European houses of the Art Deco period from the Kyoto Costume Institute (Japan) will be demonstrated in Russia. Moreover, visitors will have a chance to see jewels of 1910–1930s created by outstanding jewelry houses Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels, together with original designs and photographs from the archives. An impressive display which will reflect the ideals of beauty of the day will be held at the One-Pillar Chamber of the Patriarch's Palace and the exhibition hall of the Assumption Belfry. One hundred nineteen samples of women’s wear from the Kyoto Costume Institute, considerable part of which was restored specially for this project, will leave Japan and the Kyoto Costume Institute for the first time. Among the exhibits – evening dresses and manteau, dancing and cocktail outfits, as well as “robe de style” – a special kind of gala dress which appears in the women’s wardrobe in the Art Deco period.

Tretyakov Gallery. 12 Lavrushinsky Lane. Until 15 January 2017

The project “The Golden Map of Russia” gives the viewers an idea about the collections of State art museums of Russia as a nation-wide domain, and makes the regional museums’ collections accessible to the Moscow audience. The new exhibition in this series includes 61 paintings from the Primorye Art Gallery, and 31 paintings from the collection of the Tretyakov Gallery.

Moscow Museum of Modern Art. 25 Petrovka St. Until 15 January 2017

The Moscow Museum of Modern Art and Foundation of Russian Abstract Art present the exhibition «The New Reality Studio (1958-1991). Transformation of Consciousness» — a major retrospective of the creative association of the same name showcasing the history of underground abstract art development in the USSR, as well as the unique teaching system and theories which were a basis for the Studio’s activity. Set up after WW2, «The New Reality» has been conceived as an alternative to the USSR Academy of Arts. Its participants advocated the revival of traditions of active creative search typical for Russian avant-garde artists of the early 20th century: Vasili Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, Alexander Rodchenko. The founder of the Studio is Ely Belyutin — a legendary and controversial, talented artist-innovator and teacher, who created unique forms of creativity and worked out a system and theoretical base applicable both in art and methodology. His unique educational program was aimed at the inner liberation of a man, the extension of human emotional diapason and search for new means for a sensual documentation of the reality. These ideas became a foundation for his «Theory of common ability to contact» — an original creative method for working with pupils, which goals were not only objective depiction of the surrounding world, but also the presentation of the author’s personal perception. One of the most efficient methods was team work, that very often resulted in the creation of extraordinary and colossal artworks or practice of joint creative boat trips, as well as work in one studio, exhibitions in unusual contexts, for example, in the woods. Everything mentioned above at the time was a rare experience in art and is an interesting material for today’s researchers. During the Soviet period the exhibition and education activity of the New Reality remained little known to the wide public. Having been criticized by the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party Nikita Khruschev at one of the first major exhibitions of the Studio in Manezh in 1962, the members of the Studio went into creative underground. And only since 1989, when the pressure of the regime reduced (though Belyutin himself has never positioned his art as anti-regime), they began to participate in the legalization of the Soviet underground art.

Moscow Museum of Modern Art. 25 Petrovka St. Until 15 January 2017

The term «hieratism» introduced by Michael Schwarzman in context of current artistic life in Greek means «the sacred». The philosophy of the «hieratic art» appeared in the 1960-s and eventually resulted in the system of sign and architectonic codes. Throughout his creative life the artist has consistently moved away from the imitative realistic method striving to get closer to understanding signs of the spiritual hierarchy. He formed his own definition of the image-sign — hierature. The fate of a hierat, according to Schwarzman, is a vision and understanding of everything created by the Lord, as well as glorification of the Lord’s gifts via creativity. The name of the exhibition «Vertograds of Michael Schwarzman» figuratively reveals the hieratic art of the artist and accordingly the logic of the exhibition’s structure. The «vertograd» is a very old form of the word «orchard» and in the Christian tradition the «vertograd» means the Garden of Eden. The image of the latter known from old icons (The Mother of God «Hortus Conclusus» by Nikita Pavlovets) supposedly inspired Schwarzman for the creation of hieratures full of mysteries, experience and knowledge of the Universe. 

VDNH, Pavilion 64: Optics. Until 18 January 2017

The visitors of VDNH will find themselves in a grotesque world of a supermarket, where a giant plastic bag by Andrey Kasay threatens with devourment, instead of the pleasure of satiety, and the works of Zooma, always built on an accurate technique, cast doubts on the popular saying that money doesn't smell. Slava Ptrk carves philosophical collage messages out of annoying advertising banners, while Yevgeny Zhelvakov mocks the logic of consumer consumption by offering the chance to buy happiness at a supermarket. Andrey Adno uses his key technique to create a multilayered ephemeral object – a labyrinth of the world behind the looking glass, which sends the viewer into a geometric progression of eternal echoes of one's own ego. The famous Russian author Anatoly Akue will present a sculpture and a graphic triptych, which reflects the paradoxes of the new information era and its influence on human communication. #project64: IN/DEPENDENCE declares its independence from society and the corporations that sell us what we don't need, and from the consumer models of thinking and behaviour. The works of the leading Russian street artists will present the idea that every person has the right to freedom of choice – from major decisions to what kind of milk to buy.

Tretyakov Gallery, 10 Krymsky Val. Until 29 January 2017

The scenes of private life are a genre that always attracts the viewer's attention. 

The exhibition includes a variety of works depicting interiors: from gloomy professor’s study by Georgy Vereisky and twilight interiors by Nikolai Kupreyanov to bright and happy rooms depicted by Alexander Vedernikov and Tatiana Shishmareva in the 1960s; from ascetic “new design” paintings by Alexander Deineka and Vladimir Lyushin to colorful interiors of country houses drawn by Viktor Popkov and Nikolai Andronov.

Tretyakov Gallery, 10 Krymsky Val. Until 29 January 2017

The Tretyakov Gallery presents a selection of works of one of the most important artists of the second half of the XX–beginning of the XXI century. Leonid Sokov is painter and sculptor, a bright representative of Russian Socialist Art. This provocative trend appeared in the 70s of the last century, as a way to express their protest against the totalitarian regime, combining a socialist art and American Pop Art.

Garage Museum of Contemporary Art. Gorky Park. Until 31 January 2017

Yin Xiuzhen is the third artist invited to create a monumental, site-specific work for the Garage Atrium Commissions series. For her first solo presentation in Moscow, the Beijing-based artist will produce one of the largest architectural structures she has ever made. Entitled Slow Release, the twelve-meter long installation is enveloped in more than two hundred square meters of red and white clothing, a part of which was donated by Muscovites and hand-sewn in the shape of a magnified medicine capsule. The red and white capsule references a new generation of pills designed to reduce the speed of release of medicine in the body in order to increase its therapeutic effect. In Yin’s installation, however, the role of the decelerating element is played not by the capsule, but by the outside layer of clothing which envelopes the giant structure. By allowing visitors to enter the capsule, which is covered in the kind of clothes we wear every day––our second skin, as the artist refers to them––Yin creates a situation where people can slow down and experience the effect of being inside their own body. Reflecting on the overly fast speed with which she feels society is developing, Yin addresses the complex relationship between the contemporary demand for rapid therapeutic effects and the importance of making time for prolonged rituals of self-medication. The work functions as a powerful reminder of the antidote individual human experiences can provide to the overwhelming societal drive towards progress.

Garage Museum of Contemporary Art. Gorky Park. Until 5 February 2017

Featuring works by Francisco Goya (1746-1828), Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948) and Robert Longo (1953-) Proof offers insight into the singularity of vision through which artists can reflect social, cultural, and political complexities of their times. Spanning eras and continents, each artist witnessed the turbulent transition from one century to another, experiencing the seismic impacts of revolution, civil unrest, and war. While Goya served church and king, Eisenstein the state, and Longo emerged during the rise of the contemporary art market—the dominant benefactors of each period—they all rose to prominence through developing nuanced practices that challenged expectations and demand. Looking to innovations in technique and technology, each artist has worked across mediums—from painting and printmaking, to sculpture, film, and performance—but all continuously turn to drawing as a primary tool to articulate thinking. Rendering the societal impact of politics and power in black and white, the artists have diversely experimented with narrative visual forms, beyond traditional reportage, to chronicle events and provide an impassioned portrayal of the world around them.

Garage Museum of Contemporary Art. Gorky Park. Until 5 March 2017

Matrosov was a member of World Champions, a group which was active in Moscow in the late 1980s. World Champions were known for mocking the seriousness of the practices of the older generation of Moscow Conceptualists. Matrosov’s new text object for Garage is a phrase from a painting made in 2012. “No, she couldn’t have known how it would all…” sounds like a fragment of an overheard conversation. Mounted on the roof of the Museum building, this unfinished sentence invites many questions. Who is she and what would actually happen? The viewer is perplexed. Presented as a large neon sign, this phrase that seems to belong in a conversation between friends confuses our ideas of the private and the public, of the nature of questions and answers, and the essence of art. Through this project the concept of Garage Square Commissions is also expanded: the space of Garage Square, where artworks have previously been located, becomes the viewing place for viewers taking in Matrosov’s neon message.

Tretyakov Gallery, 10 Krymsky Val. Until 1 September 2017

One of the most important functions of a museum is to find and include into its collection the best and most important key works of the modern art.The new version of the permanent exhibition of the modern art demonstrates the diversity of artistic trends in the art of the second half of the XX century.The exhibition has the purpose to overcome the viewers’ misunderstandings and mistrust towards contemporary art, to acquaint them with the most interesting works, to create an adequate idea of the vast cultural period, forming the art space around us.