$27 Million Modern Art Gallery Opens in Moscow
MOSCOW, June 11 (UPI) — The unveiling of Moscow’s Garage Museum of Contemporary Art provides a boost to Russia’s profile in the modern art world.
At a time when politicians and church leaders in Russia demand conservative social values, the opening of the museum to the press Wednesday cemented the interest of the country’s artists in seeking an international presence. Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, who turned a former restaurant into the art gallery without sacrificing its severe architectural style, known as Brutalism, gave tours of the building Wednesday.
The museum will not have a permanent collection but rotating exhibits of modern art, to which Russians still refer by its Stalin-era name, non-conforming art. Opened in 2008 in a former garage, the museum has set trends in Moscow art circles, and in 2012 commissioned the prestigious Koolhaas to overhaul the restaurant and convert it into a modernist museum befitting its mission.
“I believe contemporary art is important because it reflects the moment that we are currently in. In 2007, when we came up with an idea to create an art institution in Moscow I could never have imagined that Garage would become what it is today,” said director Dasha Zhukova, who is married to billionaire oil executive Roman Abramovich.
The $27 million museum in Moscow’s Gorky Park will open to the public next week, and despite the gentrified neighborhood, the museum’s sharp corners and translucent walls are at odds with its surroundings just as the idea that conservative Russia could be an avant garde center of modern art.
“In the post-Soviet generation there are many people who have very many interests in working and thinking internationally and amplifying all the different perspectives that are happening here. What we need to do is look around us and see how Moscow, how Russia, connects to the international universe,” curator Kate Fowle told the Moscow Times.
