Once Again on the Abstract

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

The Moscow Museum of Modern Art is proud to present a new exhibition project Once Again on the Abstract, first in the museum’s history to be devoted exclusively to non-object art. The exhibition continues the series of research projects The Collection. Vantage Point programme.

The title refers to a popular theme in the history of contemporary art and exhibition strategies of recent years. Yet there has never been a separate project entirely devoted to this trend in MMOMA. Thus, this is a further step in the development of an institutional view of the museum's collection.

The museum has a significant collection of abstract works ranging from avant-garde classics to contemporary authors. However, the current exhibition focuses on the post-war period of the 20th century and the first quarter of the 21st century, revealing how diverse, lively and relevant abstraction remains today.

The exhibition seeks to demonstrate that abstract art is not limited to the legacy of classical modernism. It continues to develop actively in the practice of the younger generation of artists, finding a way beyond painting or graphics into new forms of visual and conceptual expression. Abstraction here appears not as a decorative element or a method of canvas organisation, but as a full-fledged language. It is a philosophy, a method of thinking, a means of artistic search.

The show occupies two floors of the MMOMA Educational Centre and is based on a dialogue between two key trends in abstraction: geometric-constructive and spontaneous-expressive. Many works are presented to the audience for the first time.

Works by such authors as Yuri Zlotnikov, Leonid Borisov, Eduard Shteinberg, Oleg Tatrintsev, Anya Zhelud, Igor Vulokh, Elizaveta Olshanskaya, Sergey Alferov, Natalia Parkhomenko and others are included. Alena Kirtsova and Pavel Belan provide their works specially for the project.

Curator

Vladimir Prokhorov

ABOUT THE PROGRAMME

Collection. Vantage Point is a long-term exhibition programme developed specifically for the MMOMA Educational Centre in addition to the series of large-scale thematic exhibitions that have become a highlight of the Museum. It is characterized by a different, focused and intimate approach to the study and presentation of the Museum collections, as well as a much more dynamic rhythm of display. The programme brings together exhibitions of various types: from monographic and archival to interdisciplinary. With the aim of exploring fragments of the collection, these essentially laboratory projects often turn to private, non-magisterial, artistic subjects and allow for the testing of new exhibition solutions. The programme provides an opportunity to examine from different perspectives a wide range of phenomena, names, trends, images and ideas in Russian art of the 20th and 21st centuries. The Museum collection as a unique resource becomes a convenient vantage point for discussing art, history, science and culture in general.

The programme was launched at the end of 2017 and is supervised by the curatorial staff of MMOMA Research Department. The programme was initiated by Andrey Egorov and Anna Harutyunyan.