Lubo, not expensive: what exhibitions to visit during the January vacations
January holidays are the ideal time to visit museums. Not everyone can afford to go for a long walk outside, but there is much more free time than on weekdays, which means that you can arrange a cultural program for yourself (and your family) and spend an hour or two surrounded by works of art. Muscovites have a really impressive choice of exhibitions.
О многих из них мы писали отдельные материалы: это «Передвижники» в Третьяковской галерее на Кадашевской набережной, «Адепты красного: Малявин & Архипов» тоже в ГТГ, но другом корпусе — Инженерном, «Франс Снейдерс и фламандский натюрморт XVII века» в ГМИИ им. A.S. Pushkin, "The New Society of Artists" at the Museum of Russian Impressionism, a retrospective of Vladimir Yakovlev at AZ/ART, and for those who decide to make a foray to the Moscow region, "Factory of the Avant-Garde. The pattern of the new world" in the Serpukhov Art Museum. But in addition to them in the first decade of the first month there are other curious projects that also deserve attention. Read about them in our selection.
Lyuba, Lyubochka, Lyubov Sergeevna Popova. 1889-1924
Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center
There have been no monographic retrospectives of Lubov Popova for 35 years. It is hard to believe: interest in the work of one of the leading artists of the Russian avant-garde has only been growing in recent years. However, that is the difficulty: museums are reluctant to part with Popova's best pieces, and to bring them together is a more than ambitious task.
Art historian, curator and one of the main experts on the Russian avant-garde, Andrei Sarabianov, has succeeded. Moreover, Popova's works are complemented here by works by other authors, creating an artistic context. In total at the exhibition in the Jewish Museum you can see more than 280 paintings and graphic works by Popova, Pablo Picasso, Andre Deren, Henri Le Fauconnier, Kazimir Malevich, Alexander Vesnin, Nadezhda Udaltsova, Varvara Stepanova. Fabric sketches, biographical documents and photographs, many of which will be shown for the first time.
Eric Bulatov, Oleg Vasiliev. A marvelous journey
Multimedia Art Museum of Moscow (MAMM)
It is known that it is necessary to take children to exhibitions in art museums. But it is very rare to find a project where a child is guaranteed not to be bored. The recently opened after restoration MAMM presents just such an exposition, which should equally please both the younger generation and parents. In the recently restored building on Ostozhenka Street, drawings and watercolors by Soviet classics Eric Bulatov and Oleg Vasiliev, who for many years cooperated with the Malysh publishing house and designed children's books, were exhibited.
Those who grew up in the USSR must have seen these editions: "Cinderella", "Sleeping Beauty", "Little Red Riding Hood", "Puss in Boots", "The Miraculous Journey of Niels and the Wild Geese", works by Agnia Barto. But, of course, no one then paid attention to the names of illustrators. Only in the perestroika period did the general public really recognize Bulatov and Vasiliev - conceptualists, non-conformists who created a new artistic language and gained international success. By the way, after the renovation, MAMM opened with an "adult" exhibition by Eric Bulatov. Now we can look at their book illustrations with different eyes.
Russian Incredible
Zotov Center for the Study of Constructivism
"Zotov", located in the monument of constructivism, Khlebozavod No. 5 on Presnya, consistently explores in its exhibitions the facets and metamorphoses of this style, sometimes including in its orbit and related phenomena. But it is the exhibition "Russian Incredible" that has become, perhaps, the widest in terms of coverage of epochs, directions and forms of artistic expression: the origins of constructivism are sought in icons and Palekh, and echoes are found in the work of non-conformists of the second half of the 20th century and our contemporaries.
All this motley collage is united by a cross-cutting idea: constructivism is a Russian phenomenon not only by its place of birth, but also by its very essence. It is also not as down-to-earth as it is usually presented, but deeply metaphysical. It is not only and not so much about everyday life as about dreams. The originality of the curator's view can be seen even in the titles of the sections: "Immeasurably", "Forever", "At Once", "In the Middle", "Alive", "Upward", "Dashing", "Unstoppable", "Beyond Limits" and "In Defiance". But the concept is not the only one. Among the works on display are paintings and graphics by Pavel Filonov, Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, Natalia Goncharova, Eric Bulatov, Vyacheslav Koleychuk, Igor Shelkovsky, Viktor Pivovarov and many others. In total - 144 exhibits from 29 state museums and galleries.
Alexander Labas. Weightlessness
New Jerusalem Museum
One of the popular places for tourist outings during January vacations is New Jerusalem, a monastery complex in picturesque places near Istra. But if you are going to go there, you should also visit the museum of the same name, where a large-scale retrospective of Alexander Labas is currently being held.
A peer of the 20th century, Labas was fascinated by the theme of speed, technological progress and aspiration into the future, but he painted views of futuristic cities and airships cutting through the sky with impressionist spontaneity and understatement.
Theexposition in "New Jerusalem", which brings together 150 works from 18 museums and 12 private collections, is called "Weightlessness" for a reason, and here, of course, it is not only and not so much about a series of works depicting aliens, but about the feeling of incredible lightness, airiness, which imbues all of Labas's art - and wonderful watercolors, and even large works in oil.
"We are sound people. Music of the Russian avant-garde
Museum of Music
Let's finish the selection with an exhibition that at first glance does not seem to be about painting, but in fact is closely related to various types of art and is necessary for understanding the Russian avant-garde, which is so fashionable today. The Museum of Music displays rare objects from its holdings that reveal the history of sound experiments from the 1910s to the 1930s. Among them are the original score of Scriabin's Prometheus, where a separate line for light appears, the world's first electric guitar, created not in America, as one might think, but in the Russian village of Bessonovka, unusual handwritten notes by composers of both the 20th and 21st centuries, and, finally, many experimental instruments on which the audience can even play.
The exhibition is generally oriented towards interactivity: for example, visitors are invited to try to voice early Soviet cinema and try to "draw" music using the Virtual ANSprogram, after which they can hear the sound of the created image. The aim of all this is not just to entertain, but to help to see with different eyes (and hear with different ears) what music and sound are in principle and how it is related to visual arts.
