On&nbsp;Wednesday November 26, the Museum, Library, Caf&eacute; and Shop will be&nbsp;closed.
On&nbsp;Friday November 28, the Museum, Library, Caf&eacute; and Shop will be&nbsp;closed.
From November 5 to&nbsp;25, new works will be&nbsp;installed in&nbsp;open storage. Tickets for the project <a href="https://garagemca.org/en/open-storage/open-storage-backstein-function" target="_blank">Backstein Function&sup2;</a> and&nbsp;the <a href="https://garagemca.org/ru/open-storage/the-artist-s-book-kabakov-meets-pivovarov-in-a-corridor-of-a-publishing-house" target="_blank">artists' books section</a> are available at&nbsp;half price

Please note

7-9 years 

10-14 years 

15-17 years 

0-6 years 

Architecture

Photo

Journalism

Psychology

Music

Family

Stream

Series

Seminars, Workshops and Training

Lectures & Talks

Concerts & Performances

Film Screenings

Exhibitions

Courses

Tours

Concerts & performances

Conferences

Exhibitions & projects

News

Interview

Talks

Lecture cycles

Conferences and seminars

Book presentations

Art Guide

Garage publishing program

Sponsors, patrons, and partners

Information partners

Garage publishing program in collaboration with Artguide Editions

Garage International Publishing Program

Library events

Books in english

Garage Screen

Russian

English

Bilingual (russian/english)

Film programs

GARAGE Club

Programs for exhibitions

Events

Garage Live

Garage Dance

Academic program

Grants

Field research

Patronship

Garage Studios

Mosaic Music

GARAGE Student

Garage.txt

Film festival

Film distribution

Sign language

Mental disabilities

Migration

Audio description

Tactile models

Accessibility guide

Physical accessibility

GARAGE Individual

Digital accessibility

Diversity

Events at Garage

Garage publishing program and Strelka Press 

Text

Audio

Video

Feature

Guide

GARAGE Individual +1

Research laboratories

Artistic research

Translation to russian sign language

Subtitles

Adapted tours

Quiet room

Translation to uzbek, tajik, and kyrgyz

GARAGE Premium

“We Treasure Our Lucid Dreams”

Space 1520

Contemporary Critical Thought

Directors’ series

The Garage Journal

GARAGE Circle

Temporality

Disability

Affect

Overcoming

Body

Timelessness

Non-normative body

GARAGE Collectors Circle  

Experience of the other

Otherness

Developmental disabilities

Mental health

Trauma

Personal experience

Neural networks

Language

7-11 years

Plain language

Garage Café

The computer class schedule

Mediation

Oleg Baranov Going Down

Podcasts

Shelf of the Month. Theatrе

Publishing program page

Series of meetings with residents

Open call

Shelf of the Month. Cinema

Shelf of the Month. Modern Dance

Projects Oral History and Oral History 2.0

Visitors in a wheelchair

garage-txt

Open storage

Research Laboratory: I Am a Parcel, You Are a Stamp

VOKS kinema Research Laboratory

Avant-Garde Center Laboratory for the Study of Soviet Art Series

LISI_TsA

Public programs

Free

Registration required

Free for exhibition ticket holders

Paid

Booking required

Booking via phone or email is required

Booking on reception is required

Off-site projects

Architecture and design

Supervision

Museology

Philosophy

Economy

Cinematography

Critical biography

Memoirs and diaries

For Garage card holders

Exhibition catalogues

Research

For children

GARAGE + Ad Marginem

GARAGE PRO

Minima

Paperback

Hardcover

Hardcover with dust jacket

Book review

Professional programs

Video review

Garage publishing program in collaboration with Ad Marginem Press

Garage publishing program in collaboration with Ad Marginem Press. GARAGE PRO Series

Garage publishing program in collaboration with Ad Marginem Press. Minima Series

City tours

Exhibition tours

Seminars, workshops & training

Lectures & talks

Capital Perspective. — 2001. no. 2

Available on request

<h2>About the archive creator</h2>

Elena Kovylina (b. 1971) is a Russian performance and video art artist, curator, and pedagogue. She studied with Rebecca Horn and is a graduate of the Berlin University of the Arts.

The artist received recognition in Russia and internationally in the 2000s, with her most radical performances and video works dating back to that period. They include Waltz (2001), Kidnapping of the Assistant (2003), Live Concert (2004), Boxing (2005), and Would You Like a Cup of Coffee?, or Burn the World of the Bourgeoisie (2009). She has traveled extensively across Europe and has lived and worked in Moscow, Zurich, Berlin, Paris, and Los Angeles. Kovylina also initiated a number of social art projects, including Theater of Homeless Youth (2002–2003) and The “Red Abode” Committee (2002–2004). In the 2010s, she founded Moscow’s first performance school, PYRFYR, where, along with theoretical classes, she conducted workshops on performance and personality development. In 2020, she curated the archival exhibition Len, You Used to Paint Better! featuring artworks, documentation, and biographical records that formed the basis of her archive, which subsequently became part of Garage Archive Collection.

Kovylina participated in Manifesta 10 (2014), Cetinje Biennial (2002), The Biennale of Sydney (2006), and Sharjah Biennial (2009). She is a recipient of the Innovation Prize (New Generation, 2006) and the “Against the Current” State Prize of the Russian Academy of Arts (2014). She lives and works in Moscow.

<h2>About the archive</h2>

Elena Kovylina’s archive collection was acquired by the Museum in 2020.

The collection, comprising more than 8,000 items, covers almost thirty years of the artist's life and practice (from the late 1980s to 2017).

It provides an idea of Kovylina’s artistic practice, sources of inspiration, and interactions with the group Radek and people on the art scene in the 2000s and 2010s.

The media archive contains over 200 cassettes. It also includes video works, performance documentation (including early performances, beginning 1997), recordings of workshops, and videos from the family archive. These include video recordings made while studying at Berlin University of the Arts (2001–2003), Theater of Homeless Youth performances (2002–2003), and auditions for the film Love after the Cold War (2006).

Kovylina also donated to Garage Archive Collection a variety of publications (books, catalogues, magazines, and newspaper clippings) covering her artistic activities. She also handed over selected personal documents: family photos and videos, diary entries, extensive correspondence with Pyotr Bystrov, invitations to international events and residencies.

The archive contains studies for works (including early ones made while studying at Surikov Moscow State Academic Art Institute), drawings, and paintings. It also features artifacts and elements of costumes: the shiny red dress for the performance Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1998), a pack of cigarettes with bullet marks, and a Quran from the performance Shooting Range (2001); the dress and the model of a hut for the performance Caryatid (2012/2015); and the hat and the stool for the performance Equality (2014). A significant part of the archive (over 2,000 items) is composed of photographs portraying the artistic life of Moscow and Europe, the artist’s travels and meetings, and documenting her performances.

About the archive creator

Elena Kovylina (b. 1971) is a Russian performance and video art artist, curator, and pedagogue. She studied with Rebecca Horn and is a graduate of the Berlin University of the Arts.

The artist received recognition in Russia and internationally in the 2000s, with her most radical performances and video works dating back to that period. They include Waltz (2001), Kidnapping of the Assistant (2003), Live Concert (2004), Boxing (2005), and Would You Like a Cup of Coffee?, or Burn the World of the Bourgeoisie (2009). She has traveled extensively across Europe and has lived and worked in Moscow, Zurich, Berlin, Paris, and Los Angeles. Kovylina also initiated a number of social art projects, including Theater of Homeless Youth (2002–2003) and The “Red Abode” Committee (2002–2004). In the 2010s, she founded Moscow’s first performance school, PYRFYR, where, along with theoretical classes, she conducted workshops on performance and personality development. In 2020, she curated the archival exhibition Len, You Used to Paint Better! featuring artworks, documentation, and biographical records that formed the basis of her archive, which subsequently became part of Garage Archive Collection.

Kovylina participated in Manifesta 10 (2014), Cetinje Biennial (2002), The Biennale of Sydney (2006), and Sharjah Biennial (2009). She is a recipient of the Innovation Prize (New Generation, 2006) and the “Against the Current” State Prize of the Russian Academy of Arts (2014). She lives and works in Moscow.

About the archive

Elena Kovylina’s archive collection was acquired by the Museum in 2020.

The collection, comprising more than 8,000 items, covers almost thirty years of the artist's life and practice (from the late 1980s to 2017).

It provides an idea of Kovylina’s artistic practice, sources of inspiration, and interactions with the group Radek and people on the art scene in the 2000s and 2010s.

The media archive contains over 200 cassettes. It also includes video works, performance documentation (including early performances, beginning 1997), recordings of workshops, and videos from the family archive. These include video recordings made while studying at Berlin University of the Arts (2001–2003), Theater of Homeless Youth performances (2002–2003), and auditions for the film Love after the Cold War (2006).

Kovylina also donated to Garage Archive Collection a variety of publications (books, catalogues, magazines, and newspaper clippings) covering her artistic activities. She also handed over selected personal documents: family photos and videos, diary entries, extensive correspondence with Pyotr Bystrov, invitations to international events and residencies.

The archive contains studies for works (including early ones made while studying at Surikov Moscow State Academic Art Institute), drawings, and paintings. It also features artifacts and elements of costumes: the shiny red dress for the performance Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1998), a pack of cigarettes with bullet marks, and a Quran from the performance Shooting Range (2001); the dress and the model of a hut for the performance Caryatid (2012/2015); and the hat and the stool for the performance Equality (2014). A significant part of the archive (over 2,000 items) is composed of photographs portraying the artistic life of Moscow and Europe, the artist’s travels and meetings, and documenting her performances.


Elena Kovylina archive

scan_2025_05-29_22_09-22.png

Art‑related socializing

Issue

Bokhorov Konstantin

Article author

Erofeev Andrei

Mentioned

Capital Perspective

Moscow

Moscow, Garage Archive Collection

Contact&nbsp;Us

Hours

GARAGE Card

Today at Garage

Youtube

Telegram

Mailing list

Subscribe to our mailing list and get the latest news from Garage

Press Mailing List

To join our press mailing list, please include your email address in the field

Toward the Source

An international online platform, initiated by Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, bringing together archives on Russian art from the postwar period to the present.

Russian Art Archive Network

If our soup can could speak: Mikhail Lifshitz and the Soviet Sixties

Andro Wekua. Dolphin in the Fountain

The Other Trans-Atlantic

Discounts in Garage Café and the shops in the Museum and the Narkomfin Building, special tour offers, and access to the communal block of the Narkomfin Building

Capital Perspective. — 2001. no. 2

Details