Gugong. Opening Seals. Contemporary Art of the People’s Republic of China from the Collection of Alexander Chistyakov

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

The Moscow Museum of Modern Art presents the exhibition Gugong. Opening Seals. Contemporary Art of the People’s Republic of China from the Collection of Alexander Chistyakov. It will showcase the art scene of the People’s Republic of China over the past decades: from the works of nonconformist artists to the so-called Cynical Realism, a recognizable and commercially successful brand of the 2000s. This project continues the MMOMA exhibition programme that aims to explore and display private Russian collections.

The show will introduce works from Alexander Chistyakov’s collection, which features leading names of contemporary Chinese art. The works by Chinese artists will be exhibited along with the Russian art from the collection of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art.

Each room of the exhibition will be organized around a particular topic reflected through different periods, trends and narratives of Chinese contemporary art. Most of the works deal with rethinking the national culture and identity in an international context. One of the main influences on contemporary Chinese art was American pop art. It was this movement, that addressed templates and stereotypes, the crisis of consumer society and the problem of the overproduction of images in mass media, that largely set the vector of artistic research after the Cultural Revolution.

The exhibition Gugong. Opening Seals sets off the dialogue with the Western world, which the artists of the People’s Republic of China have been engaged in, against the context of Russian art. This approach helps make Chinese art more accessible as it remains unfamiliar to Russian audiences and virtually unrepresented in the country.

In recent years, interest in Chinese culture has grown noticeably and continues to increase due to the cross-cultural Years of Russia and China. The exhibition’s title reflects the project’s idea: Gugong is the forbidden city, which remained inaccessible to common citizens for five centuries, but now the veil is lifted and it appears in all the brightness of its colours before the Russian audiences.

The exhibition will feature about 100 works by both Chinese and Russian artists, such as Wang Guangyi, Liu Bolin, the Luo Brothers, Yao Junzhong, Yue Minjun, Zhang Xiaogang, Eduard Gorokhovsky, Andrei Grositsky, Marina Kastalskaya, Sergey Katran, Aidan Salakhova, Oleg Tselkov, among others. Alexander Chistyakov is a Russian businessman, producer, and collector. For many years, he has been building a unique collection of Chinese culture and contemporary art. The collection, which includes leading Chinese artists, started in the 2000s and will be presented in the MMOMA space for the first time. Besides its main focus, Chistyakov’s collection also contains works by key Russian contemporary artists, such as Oleg Tselkov and Dashi Namdakov, among others.

ABOUT THE COLLECTION

Alexander Chistyakov is a Russian businessman, producer, and collector. For many years, he has been building a unique collection of Chinese culture and contemporary art. The collection, which includes leading Chinese artists, started in the 2000s and will be presented in the MMOMA space for the first time. Besides its main focus, Chistyakov’s collection also contains works by key Russian contemporary artists, such as Oleg Tselkov and Dashi Namdakov, among others.