MO.CO.Hôtel des collections
13 rue de la république, Montpellier
13 November 2019 to 09 February 2020
Public opening on November 12, 6pm (free access to the exhibition spaces until 10pm)
From Tuesday to Sunday, 12am to 7pm (last admission at 6:30pm, evacuation at 18:50 pm)
The non-conformists. The Story of a Russian Collection
For its second exhibition, MOCO Hôtel des collections presents an exceptional selection of 130 works from the State Tretyakov Gallery, the museum of Russian art located in Moscow.
Paintings, installations, sculptures, and photographs by over 50 artists offer a chronological overview of the different facets of non-conformist art in the USSR and, latterly, Russia.
This collection was formed between 1983 and 2008 under the initiative of the Russian art historian, Andrei Erofeev, with a view to creating a museum in Moscow dedicated to the history of non-conformist art, at a time when not a single Soviet institution took any interest in the avant-garde. Originally consisting of over 5,000 works, part of this collection finally entered the State Tretyakov Gallery, making it the first institution to house a contemporary Russian art department.
The exhibition is an invitation to discover the energy of this "underground" art from the 1960s through to 2000s. Each section gathers artists from the same movement and highlights their connection to Tachisme, kinetic art, Pop Art, Conceptual Art or performance. Historic documents, timelines and an education program will present the story of the collection, revealing the oft-complex relations between artists, institutions and the official art of the Soviet era. It will be accompanied by a richly illustrated catalogue with newly commissioned critical essays and texts. MOCO, in partnership with the Tretyakov Gallery, affirms its international ambition by presenting for the first time outside of Russia this important and mythical collection in its historical dimension.
Curator : Andrei Erofeev
Andrei Erofeev is an art historian and chair of the Russian section of AICA (International Association of Art Critics). He has served as curator in numerous museums, including the State Tretyakov Gallery (2002-2008), where he was head of the contemporary art department, specially created to house his collection. He is currently curator at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA). Andrei Erofeev has curated over 50 exhibitions, notably To the Object (Moscow and Amsterdam, 1990), Mad Twin (Moscow and Château d'Oiron, 1999-2000), Cetinje Biennale (Montenegro 1994, 2002), Russian Pop Art (Moscow, 2005) and Sots Art (Moscow and Paris, la maison rouge, 2007).
The State Tretyakov Gallery
The State Tretyakov Gallery is one of the leading muséums in Russia. Founded in the 19th century as a museum of Russian painting, today its collection consists of more than 200,000 works, including 7,500 works of contemporary art. In late 2001, the State Tretyakov Gallery received a collection of more than 1,500 works which had been gathered by art historian and curator, Andrei Erofeev, and kept in the Tsaritsyno Museum-Reserve. In 2002, on the basis of this collection, which was at the time the largest and most significant state-owned collection of contemporary art in Russia, a dedicated department was created in the Gallery.
Artists : Yuri Albert, Vagrich Bakhchanyan, Blue Noses (Viacheslav Mizin and Alexander Shaburov), Sergei Bordachev, Alexander Brener, Erik Bulatov, Ivan Chuikov, Elena Elagina, Valery Gerlovin, Rimma Gerlovina, Gnezdo (Gennadi Donskoy, Victor Skersis, Mikhail Rochal), Sven Gundlakh, Francisco Infante, Inspection Medical Hermeneutics (Pavel Pepperstein, Sergei Anufriev, and Yuri Leiderman), Ilya Kabakov, Vyacheslav Koleichuk, Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, Irina Korina, Valery Koshlyakov, Alexander Kosolapov, Igor Kukles, Oleg Kulik, Rostislav Lebedev, Yuri Leiderman, Georgy Litichevsky, Vyacheslav Loktev, Sergei Mironenko, Andrei Monastyrsky, Vladimir Nemukhin, Anton Olshvang, Boris Orlov, Anatoly Osmolovsky, Gosha Ostretsov, Nikolai Ovchinnikov, Nikolai Panitkov, Dmitri Plavinsky, Dmitri Prigov, Oleg Prokofiev, Mikhail Roginsky, Genrikh Sapgir, Sergei Shablavin, Igor Shelkovsky, Nikolai Silis, Vladimir Slepian, Leonid Sokov, Ülo Sooster, Vladimir Sorokin, Avdei Ter-Oganyan, Boris Turetski, Sergei Volkov, Alexander Yulikov, Konstantin Zvezdochetov.
MO.CO. curators : Pauline Faure, Anya Harrison
In partnership with :
