Garage Museum of Contemporary Art announces 2015 plans
Garage Museum of Contemporary Art
Gorky Park
9 Krymsky Val
119049 Moscow
Russia
Hours: Monday–Thursday 11–21h,
Friday–Sunday 11–22h
T+7 495 645 05 20
info [at] garageccc.com
Garage Museum of Contemporary Art is pleased to announce details of a new, 58,000-square-foot home in Moscow’s Gorky Park, scheduled to open in June 2015. Renovated by Rem Koolhaas and his firm OMA (Office for Metropolitan Architecture), the famous 1960s Vremena Goda (Seasons of the Year) restaurant is a prefabricated concrete structure that had previously lain derelict for more than two decades. OMA’s design for the building includes five exhibition galleries, a mediatheque, education spaces including a creative center for children, a screening room and auditorium, as well as a bookshop and café.
The building will feature a state-of-the-art façade consisting of a translucent double-layer of polycarbonate that is elevated 6.5 feet from the ground to visually reconnect the Museum’s interior to the park. The structure will be immediately recognizable worldwide by its unique silhouette, produced by two 36-foot-wide, vertically sliding panels that rise 23 feet above a rooftop terrace. The ground floor will function as a flexible space for both exhibitions and public events and will include an atrium space for Garage Museum’s new commissioning program. The first floor will be entirely dedicated to exhibitions, offering a wide range of opportunities for the display of art that challenge the global onset of the ubiquitous “white cube.”
OMA’s concept is pioneering in its approach to the renovation of a building from the late Soviet period by making very little intervention into the original concrete structure, as well as preserving of a number of Soviet-era elements such as mosaics and brickwork that have, until now, been accorded little architectural value or historic relevance.
The Museum will open with the first in a series of Garage Atrium commissions, featuring a monumental installation by Eric Bulatov, one of the most important living Russian artists. On the first floor, five exhibitions will feature Russian and international artists, including a major project by New York-based Rirkrit Tiravanija, widely recognized as one of the most influential artists of his generation. In September 2015—alongside the 6th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art—Garage will present the first retrospective in Moscow of the work of the renowned French-American artist Louise Bourgeois, organized by Haus der Kunst, Munich in collaboration with Garage.
Prior to the opening of the new building, Garage will continue to operate in its current spaces—Garage Pavilion and Garage Education Center—in Gorky Park. In October, the Museum will present Russian Performance: A Cartography of its History, the first exhibition to explore a century of the medium’s histories and unique traditions in Russia. This is followed by Art Experiment in December, the annual interactive project that invites participants of all ages to become immersed in contemporary art; and in February 2015, Grammar of Freedom: Lessons from the Arteast Collection 2000+, will be the first exhibition in the city to present key works by Eastern European artists from the 1960s until today in collaboration with Moderna galerija, Ljubljana.
Garage Museum of Contemporary Art
Founded by Dasha Zhukova in 2008, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art is a place for people, art, and ideas to create history. Through an extensive program of exhibitions, events, education, research, and publishing, the institution reflects on current developments in Russian and international culture, creating opportunities for public dialogue, as well as the production of new work and ideas in Moscow. At the center of all these activities is the Museum’s collection, which is the first archive in the country related to the development of Russian contemporary art from the 1950s through the present.
Garage is a non-profit project of The IRIS Foundation.
Press contact
Adam Abdalla, Nadine Johnson & Associates
adam [at] nadinejohnson.com
