New books from Garage Publishing and call for applications: Garage Curatorial Travel Grants

Garage Museum of Contemporary Art publishes two new books that provide unprecedented access to the little-known histories of Russian contemporary art and announces an open call for curators who wish to travel to Russia to learn about current art practices.

Exhibit Russia: The New International Decade 1986–1996 and Access Moscow: The Art Life of a City Revealed 1990–2000 chart the highs and lows of establishing an art scene in the years immediately before and after the fall of the Soviet Union. Each book includes first-hand accounts from the artists, curators, and writers who made it happen; rare archival documents, photographs, newspaper and magazine articles from the time; and a chronology that connects key milestones in the Russian art world with major social and political events.

Exhibit Russia focuses on the major group exhibitions and events which launched Russian artists to international attention, or introduced Russian publics to Western art stars during the turbulent decade following perestroika. Edited by Kate Fowle and Ruth Addison, with contributions from Boris Groys, Alanna Heiss, Jean-Hubert Martin, Viktor Misiano, Simon de Pury, David A. Ross, Zelfira Tregulova, Margarita Tupitsyn, and Carl Michael von Hausswolff, among others.

Access Moscow charts the explosion of art activity that took place across the city in the 1990s as the restrictions on culture loosened and so-called underground artists went public for the first time. Edited by Kate Fowle and Ruth Addison, with contributions from Valentin Diaconov, Boris Groys, Andrei Kovalev, and Elena Selina, among others.

Both titles—available through Amazon or from Distributed Art Publishers (DAP)—are part of a new Garage Publishing initiative to increase access to materials in Garage Archive Collection. A unique public resource for “unofficial” Soviet and Russian contemporary art, the Archive Collection is the largest holding of its kind in Russia, containing over 400,000 documents, images, and videos that attest to artists’ practices from across the country since the mid-1950s.

While making the history of Russian contemporary art visible, Garage is also looking to the future with the establishment of the First Triennial of Russian Contemporary Art, on view March 10–May 14, 2017. Following the largest-ever survey of art practice across Russia, the exhibition will present more than 60 artists from all over the country, offering insight into the diversity of social tendencies that constitute the art scene. On the occasion of the inaugural edition, the Museum is offering Curatorial Travel Grants for people who would like to learn more about Russian contemporary art. Open to curators from anywhere in the world, of all ages, the grant covers return airfare and accommodation for four days in Moscow during the Triennial.

For an application form please email: travelgrants [​at​] garagemca.org.

Deadline for applications: January 15, 2017.

Exhibit Russia: The New International Decade 1986–1996, edited by Kate Fowle and Ruth Addison (ISBN 9785905110528)

Access Moscow: The Art Life of a City Revealed 1990–2000, edited by Kate Fowle and Ruth Addison (ISBN 9785905110603)

Garage Museum of Contemporary Art is a place for people, art, and ideas to create history.

Founded in 2008 by Dasha Zhukova and Roman Abramovich, Garage is the first philanthropic organization in Russia to create a comprehensive public mandate for contemporary art and culture. Through an extensive program of exhibitions, events, education, research, and publishing, the institution reflects on current developments in Russian and international culture, creating opportunities for public dialogue, as well as the production of new work and ideas. At the center of all these activities is the Museum’s collection, which is the first archive in the country related to the development of Russian contemporary art from the 1950s through to the present.

Garage is a non-profit project of The IRIS Foundation.

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