10th anniversary program

2018 will be a year of celebration at Garage Museum of Contemporary Art. Founded by Dasha Zhukova and Roman Abramovich in 2008, the institution will mark its 10th anniversary; the Museum building turns 50; and Gorky Park—where the Museum is located—commemorates its 90th year. It's also the 30th anniversary of the first auction in Moscow, which became the most famous disruption of the local art scene in the Soviet era. And for those who consider football an art form, the World Cup kicks off in Moscow in June.

The year opens with Bidding for Glasnost: Sotheby's 1988 Auction in Moscow, which explores the ramifications of introducing the art market to a communist society. Spring exhibitions include The Other Transatlantic, an exhibition of Kinetic and Op Art (1950s-1970s), which presents more than 40 artists from Eastern Europe and Latin America. To coincide with the show, the museum will install the reconstruction of a 13-meter-high kinetic work by Vyacheslav Koleychuk in Garage Square, originally commissioned by the Institute of Nuclear Energy in 1967.

Reflecting on the Soviet experience of 1968, If our soup can could speak: Mikhail Lifshitz and the Soviet Sixties will unearth the vexed relations between progressive art and politics. Developed through a three-year Garage Field Research project into the scandalous 1968 publication of The Crisis of Ugliness by Soviet philosopher and art critic Mikhail Lifshitz the exhibition will use archival material, artworks, and film to explore modernism’s social context and the contradictions of “art after art” as seen from behind the Iron Curtain.

In the summer Juergen Teller will curate a show about football. The world-renowned artist and fashion photographer will look beyond the mechanics of the sport to shed new light on the people and obsessions that give football its inimitable charm. In the fall, Garage will present the first retrospective of Marcel Broodthaers in Russia. Developed specifically for the museum, the exhibition will reveal how Broodthaers’ use of language and unique take on institutional critique led to a cult following among Russian artists.

Bringing leading international artists to Russia for the first time, in the spring Andro Wekua will make a new installation for the West Gallery; in the summer Tarek Atoui and Council will present Infinite Ear following a year-long research project with the deaf community in Moscow; and in the fall Anri Sala and Damian Ortega will both develop new works for the Atrium and Garage Square respectively.

To celebrate being ten years young Garage will honor the artists who have made the first decade one to remember. Throughout the year, projects will be integrated across all aspects of the Museum’s activities, starting with Urs Fischer, who has transformed Garage’s logo. During the summer, the building will transform into a hub where past, present, and future imaginaries of culture are juxtaposed, with live performances and experimental installations. The museum will also continue to expand its support for the development of Russian contemporary art in a global context by launching Garage Studios in summer 2018. Housed in a newly renovated building in VDNKh (the historic park of the Exhibition of National Economic Achievements) the initiative will provide 18 studios, fully equipped workshops, residential areas, an auditorium, and spaces for public programs. The first large-scale project of its kind in Russia, it will provide facilities for both long- and short-term residencies by local, national, and international artists, writers, and curators.

For a full list of exhibitions, performances, publications, research initiatives, and public programs contact Cultural Counsel at garage [​at​] culturalcounsel.com.

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Cultural Counsel
Adam Abdalla: adam [​at​] culturalcounsel.com
Dan Duray: dan [​at​] culturalcounsel.com