Garage Museum of Contemporary Art

Garage Museum of Contemporary Art was founded in 2008 by Dasha Zhukova and Roman Abramovich. It was first called the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, but changed its status to museum in 2014. Garage became a space where one can study contemporary art and culture in every aspect, from architecture to works by living artists, from lectures to cinema and music.

In 2015 the museum moved to the building that used to house the famous Soviet era restaurant Vremena Goda (seasons of the year) in Gorky Central Park, built in 1968 and reconstructed by Rem Koolhaas. Thanks to this world-renown architect’s talent and his company ОМА, the restaurant turned into an ultra-modern three-story space, all precise lines on the outside and perfectly structured space on the inside. There’s lots of air and light, the colors neatly contrast with the textures, while all the industrial elements feel appropriate.

The new building without a doubt puts Garage on par with the best Western achievements in museum architecture, like Centre Pompidou in Paris or Stedelijk in Amsterdam. But Garage has its own style and its own feeling. What remains from the original Vremena Goda building has been dealt with care: one of the key elements and the symbol of the new Garage is the mosaic entitled “The Fall” created back in the 1960s.

Garage acquainted Muscovites with installations by Yayoi Kusama and Rashid Johnson, works by such greats as Louise Bourgeois and Urs Fischer, as well as by many other leading artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. Garage presents about 15 exhibitions a year, adult ticket is 400 rubles.

Key info: there’s a café and a store on the ground floor, which also sells books published by the museum. We guarantee you won’t leave empty-handed.

Tags: Garage Museum of Contemporary Art