Culture
The Kremlin’s Creeping Campaign Against
Contemporary Art
Contemporary Art
December 12, 2024
- Ada NabokovaArt Critic
Art critic Ada Nabokova discusses how the Russian authorities have been pushing radical contemporary art out of public spaces since the early 2000s, which has culminated in the recent dissolution of the so-called “department of modern trends” at the Tretyakov Gallery.
In the autumn of 2024, the management of the Tretyakov Gallery dissolved its contemporary art department – it was combined with the late 20th century art department, which handles official Soviet art.
At first glance, this looks to be an issue of internal reorganization that should concern only the Tretyakov Gallery and its employees. However, in the art community, the move has been perceived symbolically: as a sign that the state is refusing to institutionally support contemporary art as part of the global scene.
Importance of state recognition
The contemporary art department at the Tretyakov Gallery was far from the only one in the country; it was not even the first in a series of similar departments at national art museums. But it was undoubtedly the most important: in post-Soviet Russia, contemporary Russian art – genetically linked as it is to nonconformism, which had been persecuted in the Soviet Union as a form of ideological sabotage – requires state recognition. The creation of a specialized department at the Tretyakov Gallery, considered the main museum of Russian art, symbolized this recognition.
Technically, the contemporary art department at the Tretyakov Gallery was set up in 2001, but the collection that formed its basis was much older and had taken on a legendary status – it is the so-called Tsaritsyno or Erofeev collection.
At first glance, this looks to be an issue of internal reorganization that should concern only the Tretyakov Gallery and its employees. However, in the art community, the move has been perceived symbolically: as a sign that the state is refusing to institutionally support contemporary art as part of the global scene.
Importance of state recognition
The contemporary art department at the Tretyakov Gallery was far from the only one in the country; it was not even the first in a series of similar departments at national art museums. But it was undoubtedly the most important: in post-Soviet Russia, contemporary Russian art – genetically linked as it is to nonconformism, which had been persecuted in the Soviet Union as a form of ideological sabotage – requires state recognition. The creation of a specialized department at the Tretyakov Gallery, considered the main museum of Russian art, symbolized this recognition.
Technically, the contemporary art department at the Tretyakov Gallery was set up in 2001, but the collection that formed its basis was much older and had taken on a legendary status – it is the so-called Tsaritsyno or Erofeev collection.
Andrei Erofeev created a collection of contemporary Russian art and was the first head of the Tretyakov Gallery's contemporary art department from 2001 to 2008. Source: Wiki Commons
Time of change
The man behind the collection and the first head of the contemporary art department at the Tretyakov Gallery was art historian Andrei Erofeev. Erofeev was born in 1956 in Paris to a family of Soviet diplomats and spent his early childhood in the West.
He studied art history at Moscow State University and defended his dissertation there on the eve of perestroika on the “World of Art,” a Russian art movement of the early 20th century: the scholarly topic, connected with the “bourgeois” symbolists, decadents and Sergei Diaghilev, was at the time just on the verge of what was acceptable.
Unlike most of his classmates, who had only a vague idea of contemporary art from critical Soviet publications, Erofeev had seen it with his own eyes: in his childhood, he went to Western museums; in his youth, he spent time in underground circles, following his older brother, Viktor Erofeev, a dissident writer.
According to Andrei Erofeev, it was in these circles that he got the idea to create a museum of “unofficial” art: Ilya Kabakov and Dmitri Prigov, future fixtures of “Moscow Conceptualism,” convinced him that this was his artistic mission. Erofeev began to collect unofficial art in the mid-1980s, intending to donate it to the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, which was seen as showcasing the “Western style” – at least compared with the Tretyakov Gallery of that time. Though the Pushkin Museum did not deal with Russian art, an exception was made for graphics, and it was the graphics of underground artists that Erofeev began to collect to donate to the museum. (Note that Erofeev did not buy works from artists but rather received them as gifts on the condition that in the future they would go to a state museum; he never considered “his” collection as private.)
The man behind the collection and the first head of the contemporary art department at the Tretyakov Gallery was art historian Andrei Erofeev. Erofeev was born in 1956 in Paris to a family of Soviet diplomats and spent his early childhood in the West.
He studied art history at Moscow State University and defended his dissertation there on the eve of perestroika on the “World of Art,” a Russian art movement of the early 20th century: the scholarly topic, connected with the “bourgeois” symbolists, decadents and Sergei Diaghilev, was at the time just on the verge of what was acceptable.
Unlike most of his classmates, who had only a vague idea of contemporary art from critical Soviet publications, Erofeev had seen it with his own eyes: in his childhood, he went to Western museums; in his youth, he spent time in underground circles, following his older brother, Viktor Erofeev, a dissident writer.
According to Andrei Erofeev, it was in these circles that he got the idea to create a museum of “unofficial” art: Ilya Kabakov and Dmitri Prigov, future fixtures of “Moscow Conceptualism,” convinced him that this was his artistic mission. Erofeev began to collect unofficial art in the mid-1980s, intending to donate it to the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, which was seen as showcasing the “Western style” – at least compared with the Tretyakov Gallery of that time. Though the Pushkin Museum did not deal with Russian art, an exception was made for graphics, and it was the graphics of underground artists that Erofeev began to collect to donate to the museum. (Note that Erofeev did not buy works from artists but rather received them as gifts on the condition that in the future they would go to a state museum; he never considered “his” collection as private.)
“The first attempt to give state status to the collection was unsuccessful: Irina Antonova, who had headed the Pushkin Museum since 1961, was a typical Soviet art critic and did not recognize contemporary art.”
She categorically rejected Erofeev’s offering. Contemporary art would begin to be regularly exhibited at the Pushkin Museum only after Marina Loshak, a talented curator with inclusive and liberal views, replaced Antonova as director in 2013.
The USSR Ministry of Culture eventually found out that a collection of unofficial art was being assembled in Moscow. At the time, Viktor Egorychev, who had studied with Erofeev in graduate school at Moscow State University, oversaw purchases at the ministry. He was a bureaucrat with a keen sense of the political climate. Near the end of perestroika, he left the ministry to become deputy director for research at the so-called Museum of Decorative and Applied Arts of the Peoples of the USSR (now the Tsaritsyno Museum-Reserve) and invited Erofeev to join his staff. In 1989, a “segment of modern trends” was set up at Tsaritsyno.
The USSR Ministry of Culture eventually found out that a collection of unofficial art was being assembled in Moscow. At the time, Viktor Egorychev, who had studied with Erofeev in graduate school at Moscow State University, oversaw purchases at the ministry. He was a bureaucrat with a keen sense of the political climate. Near the end of perestroika, he left the ministry to become deputy director for research at the so-called Museum of Decorative and Applied Arts of the Peoples of the USSR (now the Tsaritsyno Museum-Reserve) and invited Erofeev to join his staff. In 1989, a “segment of modern trends” was set up at Tsaritsyno.
Tsaritsyno Museum Reserve. In 1989, a "segment" of contemporary art was set up there by Andrei Erofeev. Source: Wiki Commons
The wild 90s
Erofeev remembers the 1990s as a time of absolute creative freedom. The management of the Tsaritsyno Museum (headed by a retired major general of the Soviet army, Vsevolod Anikovich) did not interfere with the work of his segment, and he managed to assemble not only a collection of contemporary art but also a staff of specialists who were well versed in it.
Having received carte blanche, Erofeev decided to focus on what eluded the attention of domestic and foreign collectors of nonconformism, including the most important ones like Leonid Talochkin and Norton Dodge. The segment began to collect objects, installations and performance art, through the prism of the history of contemporary art in the West.
In Tsaritsyno, the segment had no premises for either a permanent or temporary exhibition – only a bunker used as a storeroom. Nevertheless, from the very first years of its existence, the segment actively exhibited its works in Moscow, in other Russian cities and even abroad. The debut exhibition of 1990, featuring “object in art ,” quickly received an invitation to show at Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum, whose curators were amazed to learn that there were artists in the Soviet Union who spoke the “same language” as their European colleagues. This was Erofeev’s idée fixe: to prove that uncensored art in Russia, despite the Iron Curtain and repression, was developing in the same direction as global art.
The Tsaritsyno collection was formed in the course of exhibitions: artists whose works had been exhibited often donated them to it.
Erofeev remembers the 1990s as a time of absolute creative freedom. The management of the Tsaritsyno Museum (headed by a retired major general of the Soviet army, Vsevolod Anikovich) did not interfere with the work of his segment, and he managed to assemble not only a collection of contemporary art but also a staff of specialists who were well versed in it.
Having received carte blanche, Erofeev decided to focus on what eluded the attention of domestic and foreign collectors of nonconformism, including the most important ones like Leonid Talochkin and Norton Dodge. The segment began to collect objects, installations and performance art, through the prism of the history of contemporary art in the West.
In Tsaritsyno, the segment had no premises for either a permanent or temporary exhibition – only a bunker used as a storeroom. Nevertheless, from the very first years of its existence, the segment actively exhibited its works in Moscow, in other Russian cities and even abroad. The debut exhibition of 1990, featuring “object in art ,” quickly received an invitation to show at Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum, whose curators were amazed to learn that there were artists in the Soviet Union who spoke the “same language” as their European colleagues. This was Erofeev’s idée fixe: to prove that uncensored art in Russia, despite the Iron Curtain and repression, was developing in the same direction as global art.
The Tsaritsyno collection was formed in the course of exhibitions: artists whose works had been exhibited often donated them to it.
“Erofeev enjoyed the generosity and trust of artists who dreamed of a state collection of contemporary art.”
The situation changed a little in the mid-1990s, when the art historian Leonid Bazhanov took charge of fine arts at the Russian Ministry of Culture. Like Erofeev, Bazhanov believed that contemporary art needed state support.
Back in 1986, Bazhanov founded Hermitage, an alternative association for artists who were not recognized by the Soviet system. Then, in 1992, he managed to open the National Center for Contemporary Arts (NCCA), which he later headed. With Bazhanov’s support, the Ministry of Culture purchased about 50 works for the Tsaritsyno collection.
In parallel, the contemporary art department at the Russian Museum in St Petersburg, created on the initiative of art historian Alexander Borovsky in 1989, started building its own collection. Whereas Erofeev’s focused primarily on the Moscow art scene, Borovsky’s was supported by St Petersburg artists.
In addition, in 1994 German collectors Peter and Irena Ludwig donated part of their rich collection to the Russian Museum, where contemporary Russian art was presented as part of the world scene: the Ludwig Museum appeared in St Petersburg, alongside Cologne, Aachen, Vienna, Budapest and other cities. The NCCA also organized exhibitions, formed its own collection and gradually opened branches in different regions of the country.
In 1996, the Moscow House of Photography (now the Multimedia Art Museum) opened. There, thanks to the monumental managerial efforts of founder Olga Sviblova, biennials and international exhibitions dedicated to 20th century art, from the avant-garde to the present, began to be held and a collection was put together. In 1999, the Moscow Museum of Modern Art was founded: in its early years, it housed the works of its founder, the president of the Russian Academy of Arts, Zurab Tsereteli, but over time it turned into one of the best collections of contemporary art in Russia.
Back in 1986, Bazhanov founded Hermitage, an alternative association for artists who were not recognized by the Soviet system. Then, in 1992, he managed to open the National Center for Contemporary Arts (NCCA), which he later headed. With Bazhanov’s support, the Ministry of Culture purchased about 50 works for the Tsaritsyno collection.
In parallel, the contemporary art department at the Russian Museum in St Petersburg, created on the initiative of art historian Alexander Borovsky in 1989, started building its own collection. Whereas Erofeev’s focused primarily on the Moscow art scene, Borovsky’s was supported by St Petersburg artists.
In addition, in 1994 German collectors Peter and Irena Ludwig donated part of their rich collection to the Russian Museum, where contemporary Russian art was presented as part of the world scene: the Ludwig Museum appeared in St Petersburg, alongside Cologne, Aachen, Vienna, Budapest and other cities. The NCCA also organized exhibitions, formed its own collection and gradually opened branches in different regions of the country.
In 1996, the Moscow House of Photography (now the Multimedia Art Museum) opened. There, thanks to the monumental managerial efforts of founder Olga Sviblova, biennials and international exhibitions dedicated to 20th century art, from the avant-garde to the present, began to be held and a collection was put together. In 1999, the Moscow Museum of Modern Art was founded: in its early years, it housed the works of its founder, the president of the Russian Academy of Arts, Zurab Tsereteli, but over time it turned into one of the best collections of contemporary art in Russia.
“By the early 2000s, the dream of state recognition of contemporary art – at the federal and capital-city levels – seemed close to being realized.”
By the end of the 1990s, about 5,000 items had accumulated in the Tsaritsyno bunker; Moscow had a collection of contemporary Russian art of a national scale that was sitting at a decorative and applied arts museum. Erofeev, along with the collection and staff, was offered a spot at the Tretyakov Gallery.
The era of stability
In 2001, the Tsaritsyno collection became the contemporary art department of the Tretyakov Gallery, moving from the bunker to the modernist building on Krymsky Val. Still, the museum was very wary of the art promoted by Erofeev and his staff.
It’s not that the museum had completely ignored contemporary art: during the 1990s, a number of solo exhibitions of nonconformism fixtures and contemporary artists were shown, along with several private collections and, in 2000, the first permanent exhibition of art from the second half of the 20th century.
The Ministry of Culture purchased a small number of works by unofficial artists for the Tretyakov Gallery, but they were dwarfed by the mass of socialist realism pieces that the museum had been collecting for decades.
Such a permanent exhibition suited Erofeev neither in composition nor in concept: he believed that the main national museum should not illustrate the history of the USSR through the planned production of the Artists’ Union; its task was to tell the history of free, uncensored national art, guided by the history of contemporary art in the West.
To this end, the Erofeev-led contemporary art department prepared several large exhibitions devoted to abstraction, Russian “pop art,” social art and the “new wave.” In addition, it set up its own permanent exhibition, featuring art of the second half of the 20th and early 21st centuries in a suite of rooms specially allocated by the museum management. The exhibition started with abstraction, which underground artists relearned only after Stalin’s death and the first international festivals and exhibitions during the Khrushchev Thaw, before moving to the fixtures of 1990s Actionism, such as the “dog man” Oleg Kulik.
The Tretyakov Gallery had little money to purchase art, but Erofeev, as during the Tsaritsyno years, continued to borrow works from artists, registering them for temporary storage and later transferring them to the museum collection as gifts or finding sponsors to acquire them. This was cited as the reason for Erofeev’s dismissal in 2008: Valentin Rodionov, a Soviet party functionary who had headed the Tretyakov Gallery since 1993, claimed that Erofeev’s actions in this regard violated museum rules, even though, according to Erofeev, the museum itself was dragging its feet on transferring the “temporary” items into permanent storage.
Yet the real reason why the man who had been building a state contemporary art collection for two decades was forced to part with his work was censorship scandals.
The end of the freewheeling 1990s
The first signs of the return of censorship were the protests of the Orthodox community against the most radical phenomena in modern culture. The danger of clericalization was the subject of the exhibition Beware of Religion!, which opened in early 2003 at the Sakharov Center (the Russian authorities labeled the Sakharov Center a “foreign agent” in 2014 and closed it in 2023). A few days later, Orthodox activists vandalized it, destroying many works by contemporary artists. In the aftermath, however, it was not the pogromists who were convicted, but the exhibition organizers – they were found guilty of inciting religious hatred and fined.
The era of stability
In 2001, the Tsaritsyno collection became the contemporary art department of the Tretyakov Gallery, moving from the bunker to the modernist building on Krymsky Val. Still, the museum was very wary of the art promoted by Erofeev and his staff.
It’s not that the museum had completely ignored contemporary art: during the 1990s, a number of solo exhibitions of nonconformism fixtures and contemporary artists were shown, along with several private collections and, in 2000, the first permanent exhibition of art from the second half of the 20th century.
The Ministry of Culture purchased a small number of works by unofficial artists for the Tretyakov Gallery, but they were dwarfed by the mass of socialist realism pieces that the museum had been collecting for decades.
Such a permanent exhibition suited Erofeev neither in composition nor in concept: he believed that the main national museum should not illustrate the history of the USSR through the planned production of the Artists’ Union; its task was to tell the history of free, uncensored national art, guided by the history of contemporary art in the West.
To this end, the Erofeev-led contemporary art department prepared several large exhibitions devoted to abstraction, Russian “pop art,” social art and the “new wave.” In addition, it set up its own permanent exhibition, featuring art of the second half of the 20th and early 21st centuries in a suite of rooms specially allocated by the museum management. The exhibition started with abstraction, which underground artists relearned only after Stalin’s death and the first international festivals and exhibitions during the Khrushchev Thaw, before moving to the fixtures of 1990s Actionism, such as the “dog man” Oleg Kulik.
The Tretyakov Gallery had little money to purchase art, but Erofeev, as during the Tsaritsyno years, continued to borrow works from artists, registering them for temporary storage and later transferring them to the museum collection as gifts or finding sponsors to acquire them. This was cited as the reason for Erofeev’s dismissal in 2008: Valentin Rodionov, a Soviet party functionary who had headed the Tretyakov Gallery since 1993, claimed that Erofeev’s actions in this regard violated museum rules, even though, according to Erofeev, the museum itself was dragging its feet on transferring the “temporary” items into permanent storage.
Yet the real reason why the man who had been building a state contemporary art collection for two decades was forced to part with his work was censorship scandals.
The end of the freewheeling 1990s
The first signs of the return of censorship were the protests of the Orthodox community against the most radical phenomena in modern culture. The danger of clericalization was the subject of the exhibition Beware of Religion!, which opened in early 2003 at the Sakharov Center (the Russian authorities labeled the Sakharov Center a “foreign agent” in 2014 and closed it in 2023). A few days later, Orthodox activists vandalized it, destroying many works by contemporary artists. In the aftermath, however, it was not the pogromists who were convicted, but the exhibition organizers – they were found guilty of inciting religious hatred and fined.
“Since then, pogroms have become a common occurrence at private and state exhibition venues, and museums have had to practice self-censorship.”
The exhibition Forbidden Art — 2006, organized by Andrei Erofeev. The exhibits are hidden from visitors by a false wall with viewing holes. Moscow, March 2007. Source: Wiki Commons
Erofeev encountered this at the Tretyakov Gallery: in 2007, again at the Sakharov Center, Erofeev, together with the center’s director Yuri Samodurov, staged an exhibition called Forbidden Art – 2006, consisting of works that had been removed out of caution by the organizers of his own and other Moscow exhibitions over the past year. A case was opened against Samodurov and Erofeev for inciting religious hatred; in 2010, both were found guilty and paid a fine. Another international scandal occurred that same year: Erofeev’s exhibition Sots-art was shown in France despite censorship-related sequestrations and the opposition of then-Culture Minister Alexander Sokolov. Still, the world press was riveted by the revealed “cultural” censorship in Russia. Note that Erofeev did not intentionally bring politically charged contemporary art to the forefront; rather the genetic link of this art to the Soviet underground disposed the creators of these works to irony and a critical view of the world. After Erofeev’s dismissal, the Tretyakov Gallery’s contemporary art department avoided scandals, but contemporary art in general was drifting into dangerous waters. On the one hand, the number of private institutions dealing with contemporary art – foundations, centers, art clusters, museums, galleries and fairs – grew exponentially, culminating in the creation of the Garage Museum and the V-A-C Foundation, backed by some of the richest and most influential oligarchs, Roman Abramovich and Leonid Mikhelson, respectively.
On the other hand, the authorities increasingly made it clear that Russia did not need a contemporary art project with Western liberal values. The first victim was the NCCA: in 2012, the Ministry of Culture rejected the previously approved project to build an NCCA headquarters in Moscow, which had been planned as the “Russian Center Pompidou.” In 2016, the NCCA, along with its seven regional branches, was abolished as an independent entity and eventually transferred to the Pushkin Museum.
‘Censorship from below’
Pogroms against contemporary art nowadays are carried out via Telegram, where traditional values activists issue public denunciations. This “censorship from below” has turned out to be more powerful, as shown by the example of Zelfira Tregulova, appointed director of the Tretyakov Gallery in 2015 and fired in 2023, despite her unwavering loyalty to the political regime.
The professional interests and sympathies of Tregulova, a bright museum manager with experience in major international projects, had always been Soviet official art, but she understood that museum collaboration in a globalized world is impossible without contemporary art.
Under Tregulova, the Tretyakov Gallery twice hosted the Moscow Biennial of Contemporary Art, and the contemporary art department collection, assembled by Erofeev, was enhanced with several generous gifts.
Nevertheless, in 2018 Tregulova issued the decision to dismantle the permanent exhibition of the contemporary art department and give the space over to temporary exhibitions. Meanwhile, works from the Erofeev collection were selectively added to the permanent exhibition of 20th century art.
Almost all the Tretyakov Gallery’s acquisitions of modern art, especially the gift of Marat Gelman – a “political technologist,” gallery owner and curator who now finds himself in the opposition (the Russian authorities listed him as a “foreign agent” in 2021, put him on the wanted list in 2022 and added him to the “extremists and terrorists” registry in 2024) – led to pushback from the conservative Telegram crowd, as did the most notable contemporary art exhibitions.
On the other hand, the authorities increasingly made it clear that Russia did not need a contemporary art project with Western liberal values. The first victim was the NCCA: in 2012, the Ministry of Culture rejected the previously approved project to build an NCCA headquarters in Moscow, which had been planned as the “Russian Center Pompidou.” In 2016, the NCCA, along with its seven regional branches, was abolished as an independent entity and eventually transferred to the Pushkin Museum.
‘Censorship from below’
Pogroms against contemporary art nowadays are carried out via Telegram, where traditional values activists issue public denunciations. This “censorship from below” has turned out to be more powerful, as shown by the example of Zelfira Tregulova, appointed director of the Tretyakov Gallery in 2015 and fired in 2023, despite her unwavering loyalty to the political regime.
The professional interests and sympathies of Tregulova, a bright museum manager with experience in major international projects, had always been Soviet official art, but she understood that museum collaboration in a globalized world is impossible without contemporary art.
Under Tregulova, the Tretyakov Gallery twice hosted the Moscow Biennial of Contemporary Art, and the contemporary art department collection, assembled by Erofeev, was enhanced with several generous gifts.
Nevertheless, in 2018 Tregulova issued the decision to dismantle the permanent exhibition of the contemporary art department and give the space over to temporary exhibitions. Meanwhile, works from the Erofeev collection were selectively added to the permanent exhibition of 20th century art.
Almost all the Tretyakov Gallery’s acquisitions of modern art, especially the gift of Marat Gelman – a “political technologist,” gallery owner and curator who now finds himself in the opposition (the Russian authorities listed him as a “foreign agent” in 2021, put him on the wanted list in 2022 and added him to the “extremists and terrorists” registry in 2024) – led to pushback from the conservative Telegram crowd, as did the most notable contemporary art exhibitions.
“The new director of the Tretyakov Gallery, Elena Pronicheva, first wound down the showing of contemporary art and then got rid of the contemporary art department altogether.”
Elena Pronicheva, appointed director of the Tretyakov Gallery in 2023, got rid of the contemporary art department. Source: Wiki Commons
Eternal return
That the contemporary art department is destined to dissolve into the Soviet painting department became known in an open letter of protest from Andrei Erofeev to the Tretyakov Gallery management. The letter was signed by about 200 artists, critics, collectors and museum workers, including Yevgeny Sidorov, independent Russia’s first minister of culture (1992-97). It had no effect. Now, artists are writing on social media that the Tretyakov Gallery is asking them to take back their works that were not accepted for the museum’s collection and were in temporary storage.
According to rumors, some items from the disbanded contemporary art department have been removed to a secret, special collection. The Tretyakov Gallery’s exhibition plans for 2025 include masterpieces of abstraction, far removed from the current political agenda.
In his letter of protest, Erofeev recalls how Russian and Soviet avant-garde works were removed from the Tretyakov Gallery and Russian Museum in the 1930s and what tragic consequences of that were. Recall that the avant-garde was released from special storage only during perestroika. The public, which had not seen anything like it in Soviet museums for half a century but had read scathing articles about formalism in the Soviet press, still perceives as alien and hostile the artists who were in fact the cream of the Russian art crop in the 20th century. The current generally negative attitude of the Russian viewer to contemporary art was imbued largely by that Stalinist cultural policy.
That the contemporary art department is destined to dissolve into the Soviet painting department became known in an open letter of protest from Andrei Erofeev to the Tretyakov Gallery management. The letter was signed by about 200 artists, critics, collectors and museum workers, including Yevgeny Sidorov, independent Russia’s first minister of culture (1992-97). It had no effect. Now, artists are writing on social media that the Tretyakov Gallery is asking them to take back their works that were not accepted for the museum’s collection and were in temporary storage.
According to rumors, some items from the disbanded contemporary art department have been removed to a secret, special collection. The Tretyakov Gallery’s exhibition plans for 2025 include masterpieces of abstraction, far removed from the current political agenda.
In his letter of protest, Erofeev recalls how Russian and Soviet avant-garde works were removed from the Tretyakov Gallery and Russian Museum in the 1930s and what tragic consequences of that were. Recall that the avant-garde was released from special storage only during perestroika. The public, which had not seen anything like it in Soviet museums for half a century but had read scathing articles about formalism in the Soviet press, still perceives as alien and hostile the artists who were in fact the cream of the Russian art crop in the 20th century. The current generally negative attitude of the Russian viewer to contemporary art was imbued largely by that Stalinist cultural policy.
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