Garage Center for Contemporary Culture is an independent platform for new thinking in Moscow. Through an extensive program of exhibitions, research, education and publishing, Garage reflects on current developments in Russian and international culture, creating opportunities for public dialogue and the production of new work and ideas. Founded in 2008 by Dasha Zhukova, the institution is building a unique archive focusing on the development of contemporary art in Russia while pioneering diverse educational projects for families and professionals that are the first of their kind in the country. These provide the foundation from which experimental exhibitions, events and screenings are initiated.
Garage has a rotating program of temporary exhibitions, ranging from large-scale surveys of important collections to single-artist retrospectives and group exhibitions of key international cultural areas - including photography, architecture, fashion, performance and digital art. Since 2013, Garage’s exhibition program is headed by Chief Curator Kate Fowle and International Advisor Hans-Ulrich Obrist.
Date | Artist(s) | Title | Details |
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September - November 2013 | John Baldessari | 1+1=1 | About |
June - August 2013 | Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg | The Black Pot | About |
June - August 2013 | Jan Švankmajer | Kunstkammer | About |
April - June 2013 | Various artists | The Museum of Everything: Exhibition #5 | About |
March - April 2013 | Philippe Parreno | Philippe Parreno | About |
October - December 2012 | Various artists | Temporary Structures in Gorky Park: From Melnikov to Ban | About |
August - September 2012 | Various artists | The Museum of Everything, Exhibition #5, Russian outreach | About |
August - September 2012 | Michel Gondry | Michel Gondry's Home Movie Factory | About |
July 2012 | Davide Balula | The Endless Pace (Mechanical Clock for 60 dancers) | About |
June - July 2012 | Various artists | Touch the Music | About |
June 2012 | Various artists | Bodies in Urban Spaces | About |
March - April 2012 | Various artists | FotoFest Biennale 2012: Contemporary Russian Photography 1950s | About |
Feb - March 2012 | Various artists | Alternative Fashion before Glossies 1985-1995 | About |
Oct - Dec 2011 | Marina Abramović | The Artist is Present | About |
Sept - Dec 2011 | Various artists | Necessary Art | About |
Sept - Dec 2011 | William Kentridge | Five Themes | About |
Nov - Dec 2011 | Steven Klein | Steven Klein: Time Capsule | About |
Oct - Nov 2011 | Various artists | Brodovitch: From Diaghilev to Harper’s Bazaar | About |
Nov 2011 | Various artists | 33 Fragments of Russian Performance | About |
Sept - Oct 2011 | Oscar Gustave Rejlander | Montaging Reality. Oscar Gustave Rejlander: The Two Ways of Life | About |
July - August 2011 | Fabio Viale | Marble | About |
July - August 2011 | Various artists | JapanCongo | About |
June - Aug 2011 | Various artists | Expanded Cinema: Part II | About |
June - Aug 2011 | James Turrell | James Turrell | About |
April - June 2011 | Various artists | Alternative Fashion before Glossies 1985 - 1995 | About |
March – June 2011 | Various artists | New York Minute | About |
April - May 2011 | Žilvinas Kempinas | Still | About |
March - April 2011 | Various artists | Cuba in Revolution | About |
March 2011 | Various artists | The Phantom Monuments | About |
Feb - April 2011 | Christian Marclay | The Clock | About |
Feb - April 2011 | Various artists | Decode: Digital Design Sensations | About |
Nov - Feb 2011 | Various artists | How Soon is Now | About |
Nov - Dec 2010 | Various artists | Dysfashional | About |
Oct - Feb 2011 | Various artists | The New Décor | About |
Oct - Jan 2011 | Various artists | Vinyl: records and covers by Artists | About |
Sept 2010 | Various artists | The First International Performance Festival | About |
June - Sept 2010 | AES+F | The Feast of Trimalchio | About |
June - Sept 2010 | Various artists | 100 Years of Performance | About |
June - Sept 2010 | Francesco Vezzoli | Francesco Vezzoli | About |
May - Oct 2010 | Carsten Höller | Giant Triple Mushrooms | About |
April - Aug 2010 | Mark Rothko | Into an Unknown World | About |
April - May 2010 | Various artists | Future from Here: Russian Utopia part 2 | About |
March - May 2010 | Various artists | Futurologia/Russian Utopias | About |
October 2009 | Various artists | Moskonstruct | About |
Sept - Nov 2009 | Various artists | Third Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art: Against Exclusion | About |
July - Sept 2009 | Anthony Gormley | Domain Field | About |
April - May 2009 | David Lynch and Christian Louboutin | Fetish | About |
March - June 2009 | Works from the François Pinault Foundation | Un Certain Etat du Monde?/ A Certain State of the World? | About |
Sept - Oct 2008 | Ilya and Emilia Kabakov | Ilya and Emilia Kabakov | About |
Garage has established a strong educational program for both adults and young people, but in particular an active program for children. Garage hosts daily free events such as curator and artist talks, conversations, symposia, workshops, performances and special film screenings. Exhibitions are also accompanied by a program of related events focusing on the themes and issues within the exhibition. There is also a growing number of separate strands which operate in addition to the exhibitions, where events attempt to provoke challenging perspectives or explore current ideas within contemporary culture. Many exhibitions also include audio guides, downloadable artist and curator tours, children’s trails and accessible digital archives.
Activities and events for children are delivered through the Garage Kids program. Garage Kids is a series of free activities, events and trails where children can engage with their world through the eyes of an artist to inspire their own creativity and understanding of art. Garage encourages children to learn through creative activity and playful experiences with contemporary culture. Every weekend the free workshops offer children the chance to work with young and talented artists to create their own artworks using the current exhibitions, culture and art as inspiration. In 2013 Garage opened a purpose built Education Center, accommodating a wide-range of educational activities. The building continues to undergo renovations and is due for completion in September 2013.
Art Experiment is a large-scale annual event including interactive and immersive activities, events and installations for children and families. Garage created Art Experiment in 2010 to allow more visitors the opportunity to open up different routes to explore contemporary culture and to provide more than just an exhibition but to create a space that offers a journey of experiences, which together are transformative and memorable. Previous Art Experiment events have explored themes such as, ‘the five senses’, ‘surrealism’ and ‘the universe’, and have featured works by Martin Creed and food artists Bompas & Parr. Art Experiment is one of the most popular events in Garage’s education program, with 2011’s event attracting over 6,000 visitors. Whereas in previous years Art Experiment was staged over an intensive two-day period, in 2013 the format was changed with the event running for a month, enabling more visitors to experience the event.
In 2013, Garage created a Research Program and Public Archive, dedicated to the study of 20th century and contemporary Russian art history and culture, including its influences internationally. The archive features an extensive holding of documentary materials relating to contemporary art in Moscow, Saint Petersburg and other cities within Russia since the 1950s. It also includes audiovisual materials, such as recordings of artist interviews (1960s–1990s), digitized publications, and a video library of films and documentaries related to contemporary art in Russia. A free online catalogue of the Archive & Library is being developed, with plans to create an extensive database of artists and events-listings related to Russian contemporary art since the 1950s. Garage Research was established in conjunction with the archive to initiate archival research, commissions, and related programs, including seminars, conferences and other events in collaboration with Garage Exhibitions and Education. Garage Research promotes new exploration and discovery of Russian art and culture through specific projects, and has produced a number of original exhibitions drawn from archival research.
In 2012, Garage announced the launch of a joint publishing program with Ad Marginem Press, specializing in texts on contemporary culture. The series includes publications on contemporary art and architecture, new media, photography, theater, cinema, sociology and cultural marketing.
Garage runs a Grant program, awarding grants to artists early in their career - ages 18 to 35 - to allow them to carry out work and assist them in their development. The grants are awarded annually to Russian artists who create interesting and unusual contemporary work, utilizing original materials and forms.
Garage Projects creates contemporary cultural installations and ‘happenings’ in Russia and other sites all over the world. Garage Projects has hosted a number of off-site events, such as a presentation of The History Lesson at the Palais de Tokyo (12–27 June 2010) where curator Joseph Backstein brought together over 20 Russian artists to create an exhibition showing the panorama of Russian art over the last 30 years. Garage Projects also presented The MishMash Group at ARCOmadrid as part of the museum program for Focus Russia during the fair. The MishMash Group invited visitors to become part of their performance Volumes of Desires and Various Types of Voids at Circulo de Bellas Artes as well as creating an interactive installation within the ARCOmadrid fair. As part of the 54th Venice Biennale, Garage Projects presented Commercial Break. Curated by Neville Wakefield and produced by POST magazine, Commercial Break featured over one hundred artists, each engaging with the relationship between advertising and culture. Because of strict permits needed in Venice, the project never realize its initial goal of being projected to thousands of visitors during the Biennale - by having a large-scale screen on a barge which would have been towed up the Grand Canal.
Year | Title | Artist(s) | Location | Details |
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2013 | Festival of Contemporary Culture in Anadyr | Various artists | Various locations, Anadyr, Russia | About |
2011 | Commercial Break, curated by Neville Wakefield | Various artists | 54th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy | About |
2011 | International Portfolio Review in Moscow | Various artists | Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, Moscow | About |
2011 | Volumes of Desires and Various Types of Voids | The MishMash Group | ARCOmadrid, Madrid, Spain | About |
2010 | The History Lesson, curated by Joseph Backstein | Various artists | Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France | About |
2009 | Sciame di dirigibili, in association with Daniel Birnbaum | Héctor Zamora | 53rd Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy | About |
2008 | Moscow on the Move, curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist | Various artists | Mosenergo Building, Moscow | About |
2008 | Pulse Spiral | Rafael Lozano Hemmer | Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, Moscow | About |
From 2008 to 2011, Garage was housed in a landmark of early 20th-century Russian architecture. Designed in 1926, the 8,500 square metre former Bakhmetevsky Bus Garage was the brainchild of two of the most radical thinkers in their field at the time: the architect and artist Konstantin Melnikov and the structural engineer Vladimir Shukhov.
In spring 2011, Garage announced that its current space – the former 20th century Bakhmetevsky Bus Garage – will be handed back to the care of the Russian Jewish Community at the end of the year. It will be moving to a new location in Gorky Park, Moscow, opening to the public during 2012. Gorky Central Park of Culture and Leisure is a public park in central Moscow. Opened in 1928, the park was named after Maxim Gorky (1868-1936), a Soviet author and political activist who pioneered Socialist Realism. Today, the park extends over 300 acres along the Moskva River and across from the Park Kultury Metro Station.
Gorky Park was planned by the Constructivist architect Konstantin Melnikov. The park was created from a combination of the Neskuchny Garden and the old Golitsyn Hospital. Upon its foundation in 1928, the park was the first of its kind in the Soviet Union and later became a prototype for the creation of many other parks across the country.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the park became host to a popular amusement park in summer, which included fun fairs and rides such as a large-scale ferris wheel and a mock-up of the Buran Space Shuttle. In winter, the park hosted cold weather activities such as ice-skating.
Garage’s exhibition program for 2013 will take place in a temporary pavilion designed by internationally acclaimed architect Shigeru Ban and situated on the park’s Pionersky Pond, which opened to the public in October 2012. Shigeru Ban is famous for his innovative use of raw materials, including paper and cardboard, and his use of eco-friendly building resources. The structure uses locally produced paper tubes to create an oval wall that is 7.5 meters high. The total area of the pavilion is 2,400 square meters based on a rectangle within an oval. The pavilion will host exhibitions and educational activities until early 2014, after which time it will be dedicated to experimental projects.
Garage Gorky Park will be a renovation of the famous 1960s Vremena Goda (Seasons of the Year) restaurant, a prefabricated concrete structure that has been derelict for more than two decades. OMA’s design for the 5,400 square meter building includes exhibition galleries on two levels, creative center for children, shop, café, auditorium and offices. The design preserves original soviet-era elements Garage Gorky Park – including a large mosaic, and decorative tiles and brick – while incorporating a range of innovative architectural and curatorial devices. OMA is collaborating on the project with the young Russian practice Form Bureau.
In the longer term, Garage plans to develop an 8,500 square meter hexagonal pavilion in the park. This historic 1920s structure, which consists of six sections built around a central courtyard, was first constructed to house the first All-Union Agricultural Exhibition, but later became a pre-war exhibition space for soviet artists. The development will become one of the most important non-profit international contemporary art sites in Moscow, with international standard gallery facilities and areas dedicated to education and learning.
The IRIS Foundation was founded in 2008 by Dasha Zhukova. It is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the understanding and development of contemporary culture. The IRIS Foundation supports all activities of Garage Center for Contemporary Culture in Russia and internationally.
The IRIS Foundation is currently working together with investment partner Millhouse LLC on the New Holland Island project in St. Petersburg. The project includes the restoration of historic buildings on the site, with a view towards establishing a major cultural center, including a museum, studio, theater and concert facilities, together with retail, office and residential spaces.
New Holland is an eight-hectare island bordered by two canals and a river in the heart of St. Petersburg, a twenty-minute walk from the city’s Hermitage Museum and other important cultural sites. The island was conceived by Peter the Great in 1719, and it became Russia’s first military port in 1721. Throughout most of its 300 year history, the island belonged to the military and was closed to the general public.
In 2010, Millhouse affiliate New Holland Development won an investment tender to develop the island and chose The IRIS Foundation to manage the creative aspects of the project. The following year, IRIS, together with the UK-based Architecture Foundation, conducted a competition among top international architects to develop a general concept and architectural direction for New Holland. The winner of the competition was the New York based practice WORKac.
In the summer of 2011, New Holland was opened to the public for the first time. The Summer in New Holland program brought a park, cafés and other facilities to available open spaces on the island, and a full program of events included artists in residence and projects from a range of Russian and international artists. More than 150,000 people visited the island over the course of two and a half months.