Birds Flying Inside the Head

The Moscow Museum of Modern Art is celebrating its 20th birthday and displays exhibits from collections of different years. Art curator of the exhibition Diana Dzhangveladze tells about the highlights to focus on.

The Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA) is celebrating its 20th anniversary with the exhibition ‘MMOMA 99/19' held on the occasion. Three floors of the mansion on Petrovka now house 20 themed venues created by star art curators displaying exhibits from collections of different years. The exhibition reflects their perspectives both on the Museum's holdings and on contemporary art in particular.
Read in collaborative article by mos.ru and Mosgortur Agency about the exhibition's highlights.

Visiting pages of the past with Oleg Voskoboinikov

The medievalist and translator Oleg Voskoboinikov dedicated his venue to the dialogue of contemporary and medieval art.

'I asked my museum colleagues to choose something medieval from the holdings, but with a modern twist. I think that the image of a person in art is a decent topic to discuss together and to address the audience with. At the same time, I wanted to make a traveller stop in the middle of the display and tell him: 'Think for a while'. I believe that this spot is a place to rest, have a break,' he says.

There are just a few exhibits in the History Hall, with 'Composition with a Shovel' by Andrei Grositsky being one of its highlights. Voskoboinikov invites visitors to focus on the shovel. The curator points that work has become both a curse and a blessing for humankind, its fate, and a metaphor for the earthly path.
'When I took a look at the photo of this picture, I realised that the shovel can tell the viewer a lot, and put him or her on a better footing. There is also some optimistic flavour in this work — though it is a vintage shovel with a broken handle, it looks reliable, it gives a sense of safety,' he said.
The paintings 'Birds Flying Inside the Head' by Leonid Tishkov, 'Little Witch' by Mikhail Grobman, 'War' by Boris Anisfeld, 'Selfportrait' by Dmitry Prigov, and Komar and Melamid's urban angels diptych elaborate on man’s earthly journey. The work embodies the curator's idea that 'We are born to shovel, but at the end we return to heaven'.

 https://www.mos.ru/en/news/item/68038073/