Protoarchive. Speos. Sidur 1924 | 2024

About the exhibition

Vadim Sidur Museum and the Moscow Museum of Modern Art present the exhibition PROTOARCHIVE. SPEOS, a temporary exhibition on the first floor of the museum. This is a final chapter of the tetralogy of events marking the centenary of Vadim Sidur’s birth and dedicated to the study of his legacy from the perspective of personal myth.

The project brings the history of the studio, which Sidur proudly called ‘My Basement’, into focus. The space, created as part of the atomic bomb shelter of a residential building on Komsomolsky Avenue in Moscow, became the only shelter not only for numerous sculptures, but also a meeting and socialising place for representatives of the leading scholar and scientists of the Soviet era.

The world of the ‘Basement’ did not leave Vadim Sidur even at his dacha in Alabino near Moscow: walking through the forest, he collected details for future installations and considered possible scenarios of a global catastrophe - nuclear or ecological. It was this practice that led to the emergence in the 1960s and 1970s of a series of works that were later united into a special post-apocalyptic subject, called ‘the art of balance and fear’ or Grob-Art (Coffin-Art). The exhibition on the first floor is temporary and will run until 24 February 2025.

About the artist

Vadim Sidur (1924 – 1986) was a prominent representative of the Soviet unofficial art of the late twentieth century. His biography is a story of a person who survived the hardships of the 30s, evacuation, a severe injury from serving in the army during the Second World War and a subsequent rejection from the official cultural scene; a story of a person who remained dedicated to the chosen path, found the most accurate language for expressing the inexpressible and became part of post-war art history.

Vadim Sidur's artistic legacy is diverse and includes more than five hundred sculptures as well about a thousand graphic sheets; an experimental film Monument to the Modern Condition produced in 1974; a posthumously published collection of poems The Happiest Autumn and an autobiographical novel MYTH. Monument to the Modern Condition, which the author worked on for many years, collecting memories, observations, and sketches from everyday life. Vadim Sidur's full-size sculptures have been installed not only in Russia, but also in several cities in Germany and the USA.

VADIM SIDUR MUSEUM

In 2018, the Vadim Sidur Museum became part of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art and has turned into much more than just a place that stores and represents the artist's heritage, now it also informs and embodies today’s cultural agenda.

The museum's collection holds more than 1,000 sculptures and graphic works by Vadim Sidur, as well as numerous archival items. The museum works with the collection dynamically, using new approaches to exhibiting the works.

The museum's library has Russian and international publications about Vadim Sidur, exhibition catalogues, research articles collections, fiction books with illustrations by Sidur, a series of poetry collections Evenings at the Sidur Museum, as well as literature on the theory of contemporary culture and art.