Modern Art and Photography Galleries

Moscow has over a hundred modern art galleries. Funded by sponsors and private funds, many modern art museums have become Moscow’s top exhibition venues over the past decade, including the Garage Museum, the Vinzavod Cultural Centre and the Institute of Russian Realist Art. In present-day Moscow, classical large-scale museum spaces, such as the Central House of Artists or the Manege Central Exhibition Hall, neighbor chamber galleries, for instance, the Rigina Gallery and the Ekaterina Cultural Foundation. Another group of exhibition spaces include ambitious art clusters (Vinzavod and Artplay, among others) featuring exhibition and lecture halls, small galleries, cafés and bookstores.

The Garage Museum houses Russia’s first large-scale archive dedicated to modern Russian art from the 1950s to the present. It regularly holds temporary exhibitions that always become the big events of the season. The Museum actively promotes present-day Russian and international art covering all possible genres and styles, supports fledgling artists, and undertakes research, educational and publishing activities. The Museum has an excellent bookstore and a library. The Garage Museum is located in Gorky Park.

This vast educational cluster primarily focuses on one of the trendiest areas of modern art, photography. The Museum occupies no less than seven floors and features minimalist interior design. It hosted exhibits by numerous artists, such as A. Rodchenko, Kh. Newton, A. Leibovitz, D. Hurst and many others. This museum regularly holds the Photo Biennale and the Fashion and Style in Photography Festival. The Multimedia Art Museum is situated in Ostozhenka, a beautiful historical neighbourhood, a few steps from the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.

Located in the former building of the same-name chocolate factory on Bersenevskaya Embankment in a beautiful area near the Kremlin, Red October has been one of the largest art clusters since 2007. It is now one of the major meeting points for the creative elite in Moscow. Visitors will find almost anything on the territory of the former factory: exhibition halls, educational projects, unconventional cafés and pricy nightclubs and restaurants, an anti-cinema, shops selling designer goods, concert venues and much more, even a boxing ring.

Many exhibitions, especially major art galleries, present information on exhibits in both Russian and English. The Multimedia Art Museum, the Garage and the Moscow Museum of Modern Art offer excursions in English. Film screenings in English are available at the Multimedia Art Museum and the Brothers Lumiere Photography Centre; the latter has a library with most of its books in English. The Garage Museum publishes its brochures in Russian and English and offers audio guides in English. English-language lectures on 20th- and early 21st-century Russian art are offered at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art.