By Dean Gregory, to Museum Spotlight Europe (January 2022)
The Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow, Russia, hosts the collection of visionary Dasha Zhukova and leads a new collaboration of four museums in the Russian capital, including: The Garage Museum, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, The State Tretyakov Gallery, and the GES-2 House of Culture by the V-A-C Foundation. This new association, also known as M4, endeavors to provide cultural enthusiasts with the history of art, beginning in antiquity through the contemporary era.
For Zhukova, spearheading the collaboration is her latest, in a series of concerted efforts, to forge greater cultural appreciation and art education. The Garage Museum contributes in this pursuit for appreciation and education. In fact, Zhukova’s efforts and the museum’s mission reflect a broader trend in the contemporary art museum landscape; Private collections are now serving as catalysts for new museums to expand art, cultural awareness and education globally. Below, learn more about the visionary woman shaping the next generation of art, The Garage Museum and M4’s impressive partnership.
Dasha Zhukova’s Creative Work
As a collector, Zhukova has amassed a significant collection of works, chiefly from the School of London, including masterpieces by Freud, Bacon, Hockney and others. Of special note in her holdings is Hockney’s Beverly Hills Housewife, 1966–67. The work depicts Betty Freeman, an accomplished collector in her own right at the time. As a visionary seeking to push art to the cutting-edge, Zhukova not only leads The Garage Museum, but also serves as Editor-in-Chief of Garage Magazine, which explores synergies between contemporary art and fashion. The biannual publication features collaborations with esteemed creative minds, including Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Marc Jacobs, and Richard Prince, in addition to others.
The Garage Museum
Founded in 2008 by Dasha Zhukova and Roman Abramovich, The Garage Museum was originally built in the former Bakhmetevsky Bus Garage in Moscow. Later, in 2015, the museum was reconstructed by the Dutch architect, Rem Koolhaas with the firm OMA in The Netherlands. The museum currently resides in a space that was previously the Vremena Goda restaurant. However, with the vision of the Japanese architectural firm SANAA, the institution is reimagining the Hexagon pavilion as its new home in Gorky Park. The Hexagon and Vremena Goda will be linked as a cooperative space, showcasing a medley of multidisciplinary projects and performance pieces.
Photo by Sergey Norin
The three current exhibitions at The Garage Museum illuminate the range of conceptual art, highlighting innovators with fresh perspectives. Paweł Althamer’s Silence, Thomas Demand’s Mirror without Memory as well as a collective exhibit titled Spirit Labor: Duration, Difficulty, and Affect, take visitors on a journey of abstraction and exploration of the human experience.
Thomas Demand, Mirror Without Memory, installation view, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, 2021. Photo: Alexey Narodizkiy. © Garage Museum of Contemporary Art
Past exhibitions at the space have featured modern and contemporary masters, including Mark Rothko, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, and Cindy Sherman. The permanent collection of the museum features principally Soviet and Russian art from the mid-20th century through the present.
M4’s Mission
The collaboration of M4 seeks to answer the following question posed by Zhukova: “How do we measure our responsibility as an institution for our community?” Each museum has a slightly different approach to answering this question. The Garage Museum showcases global art in Moscow while supporting local and regional institutions through grants and the M4 program. The Pushkin Museum features a broad collection of art from antiquity through the 20th century. Of note at the Pushkin is Rembrandt’s Portrait of an Old , works by Botticelli as well as intriguing sculptures from Hellenistic Central Asia. The State Tretyakov Gallery serves as the national treasury of Russian art in the country. Highlights of the institution include pieces by Kandinsky and a portrait of the novelist Fydor Dostoevsky, painted by Vasily Perov. The GES-2 House of Culture features exhibitions like, To Moscow! To Moscow! To Moscow! and Santa Barbara that captures the contours and textures of contemporary art. The alignment of the four museums is facilitated by their joint mission and close proximity in central Moscow. Visit the museums of M4 by taxi, pedestrian walkway or public transportation.
Other Museums to Consider
Art enthusiasts interested in learning more about Russian art and institutions should read Museum Spotlight Europe’s special feature on the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. Traveling between Moscow and St Petersburg is convenient by train or flight. For further reading on private collections that serve as the foundation of recently established museums, readers should review Museum Spotlight Europe’s piece on the Fondation Louis Vuitton collection, which recently held an exhibition of modern Russian and French art from the esteemed collection of Mikhail and Ivan Morozov. In addition, the Fondation Cartier in Paris features the first exhibition of Damien Hirst, titled Cherry Blossoms.
Cover photo by Sun Furong via The Garage Museum.
