On&nbsp;Saturday November 23 the 0+ Space will be&nbsp;closed.

Please note

Main Collection

Acquired from Igor Makarevich

Private gift

Acquired from the artist

Andrei Monastyrsky is a leading ideologue of Moscow Conceptualism, a legend of contemporary art, and one of the founders of the group Collective Actions, which has been producing spatial and temporal actions since 1976. Over the years the group has included Nikita Alexeev, George Kiesewalter, Nikolai Panitkov, Igor Makarevich, Elena Elagina, Sergei Romashko, and Sabina Haensgen. Most of the actions were documented and published in 15 volumes as  Trips Out of Town . 

 The assemblage Transport. An Aesthetic Plate is related to the so‑called object zone of the demonstrative field of actions, which took place between 1983 and 1985 and were part of the third volume of  Trips Out of Town . In the preface, Monastyrsky stressed the aesthetic independence of the objects: they can be exhibited without the accompanying texts and photographs. 

 Initially Transport was created for the action Discussion , which took place in Monastrysky’s apartment on September 28, 1985. The first stage of the action involved listening to a 55-minute recording of Monastyrsky’s text “TsZI‑TsZI,” and the the second was a discussion accompanied by slide films from the series Fragments. Closed City . The discussion was made more difficult by the fact that every comment by participants was repeated into a microphone by Monastyrsky. 

 The visuals comprised an exhibition of Category CA objects (the group’s term), which included nine absurdist objects, some of which had already been used in other actions. Transport. An Aesthetic Plate comprised “wooden frames, covers of the magazine Guten Tag with metallic wings and stars, and metal sheets combined and laid on top of each other in a specific manner.” 

 According to Joseph Backstein, “these objects are typically completely and utterly incomprehensible to those not in the know. They are not objects, but some kind of embodiment of the absurd.” Later Monastyrsky would state that the creation of the objects was an unconscious act which took on meaning for him during the making of the action. In essence, this action was an attempt to be liberated “from a mentalized aesthetic program,” from “the ideological social space of accepted reality” or, in simpler terms, we might say that it, like most of CA’s actions, involved a search for internal freedom in a situation of total lack of liberty.

 Andrei Monastyrsky is a leading ideologue of Moscow Conceptualism, a legend of contemporary art, and one of the founders of the group Collective Actions, which has been producing spatial and temporal actions since 1976. Over the years the group has included Nikita Alexeev, George Kiesewalter, Nikolai Panitkov, Igor Makarevich, Elena Elagina, Sergei Romashko, and Sabina Haensgen. Most of the actions were documented and published in 15 volumes as  Trips Out of Town . 

 The assemblage  Transport. An Aesthetic Plate  is related to the so‑called object zone of the demonstrative field of actions, which took place between 1983 and 1985 and were part of the third volume of  Trips Out of Town . In the preface, Monastyrsky stressed the aesthetic independence of the objects: they can be exhibited without the accompanying texts and photographs. 

 Initially  Transport was created for the action  Discussion , which took place in Monastrysky’s apartment on September 28, 1985. The first stage of the action involved listening to a 55-minute recording of Monastyrsky’s text “TsZI‑TsZI,” and the the second was a discussion accompanied by slide films from the series  Fragments. Closed City . The discussion was made more difficult by the fact that every comment by participants was repeated into a microphone by Monastyrsky. 

 The visuals comprised an exhibition of Category CA objects (the group’s term), which included nine absurdist objects, some of which had already been used in other actions.  Transport. An Aesthetic Plate  comprised “wooden frames, covers of the magazine  Guten Tag  with metallic wings and stars, and metal sheets combined and laid on top of each other in a specific manner.” 

 According to Joseph Backstein, “these objects are typically completely and utterly incomprehensible to those not in the know. They are not objects, but some kind of embodiment of the absurd.” Later Monastyrsky would state that the creation of the objects was an unconscious act which took on meaning for him during the making of the action. In essence, this action was an attempt to be liberated “from a mentalized aesthetic program,” from “the ideological social space of accepted reality” or, in simpler terms, we might say that it, like most of CA’s actions, involved a search for internal freedom in a situation of total lack of liberty. 

Transport. An Aesthetic Plate

Игорь Макаревич и Елена Елагина — одна из главных художественных пар в отечественном искусстве последних 40 лет. Они начали совместную работу в 1990 году, их первой совместной работой стал проект «Закрытая рыбная выставка», который на протяжении 20 лет развивался и дополнялся, став одним из знаковых произведений московского концептуализма. К моменту завершения в 2015 году в него вошло 110 объектов — примерно половина из них находится в собрании Музея Людвига в Ахене (Германия). В Музее «Гараж» находятся 24 объекта — крупнейший фрагмент «Закрытой рыбной выставки» в России. 

 Первый показ «Закрытой рыбной выставки» состоялся в 1990 году в загородном Музее МАНИ (Московский архив нового искусства) — на даче художника, участника группы «Коллективные действия» Николая Паниткова. В основе проекта лежала брошюра, выпущенная тиражом 245 экземпляров к выставке, которая была организована в 1935 году по итогам творческой командировки московских художников в Волго‑Каспийский Госрыбтрест в Астрахани, где они знакомились с работой советской рыболовецкой промышленностью. 

 По словам искусствоведа Екатерины Деготь, главная форма произведения в московском концептуализме — «превращенное в предмет слово». «Закрытая рыбная выставка» блестяще иллюстрирует этот тезис: Макаревич и Елагина реконструировали экспозицию по названиям работ в каталоге (в нем не было иллюстраций), буквально овеществляя их в форме загадочных ассамбляжей‑ребусов, собранных в основном из найденных материалов.

 Igor Makarevich and Elena Elagina are one of the key artist couples in Russian art of the past forty years. They began working together in 1990. Their first collaboration was the project Closed Fish Exhibition, which developed and expanded over the twenty years that followed and became a seminal work of Moscow Conceptualism. By the time it was completed in 2015, it included 110 objects, around half of which are now in the collection of the Suermondt‑Ludwig‑Museum in Aachen, Germany. At Garage there are 24 objects, the largest part of the Closed Fish Exhibition in Russia. 
 
 The first showing of the Closed Fish Exhibition took place in 1990 at MANI (Moscow Archive of New Art) Museum in the country house of artist and Collective Actions member Nikolai Panitkov. The project was built around a brochure published in 245 copies for the 1935 exhibition that followed an official trip by Moscow artists to the Volga‑Caspian Gosrybtrest [State Fish Enterprise] in Astrakhan to learn about the Soviet fishing industry. 
 
 According to art historian Ekaterina Degot, the main art form in Moscow Сonceptualism is «the word, turned into an object.» The Closed Fish Exhibition is a brilliant illustration of her thesis: Makarevich and Elagina have reconstructed the 1930s exhibition based on the titles of works in its catalogue (which had no illustrations), literally turning them into objects‑enigmatic riddles assembled largely from found materials. 

Portraits of Hothouse Combine Workers, no. 4

Caravan

Ris-Unok

Radio Motor at Sea

Sketch 2

Portraits of Hothouse Combine Workers, no. 2

Cuts

Red Fish Cutting

Still Life with Fish

Portrait of a Helmsman

Ris-Unok. Lead Pencil

Игорь Макаревич и Елена Елагина — одна из главных художественных пар в отечественном искусстве последних 40 лет. Они начали сотрудничество в 1990 году, их первой совместной работой стал проект «Закрытая рыбная выставка», который на протяжении 20 лет развивался и дополнялся, превратившись в одно из знаковых произведений московского концептуализма. К моменту завершения в 2015 году в него вошло 110 объектов — примерно половина из них находится в собрании Музея Людвига в Ахене (Германия). В Музее «Гараж» хранятся 24 объекта — крупнейший фрагмент «Закрытой рыбной выставки» в России. 

 Первый показ «Закрытой рыбной выставки» состоялся в загородном Музее МАНИ (Московский архив нового искусства) — на даче художника, участника группы «Коллективные действия» Николая Паниткова. В основе проекта лежала брошюра, выпущенная тиражом 245 экземпляров к выставке, которая была организована в 1935 году по итогам творческой командировки московских художников в Волго‑Каспийский Госрыбтрест в Астрахани, где они знакомились с работой советской рыболовецкой промышленности. 

 По словам искусствоведа Екатерины Деготь, главная форма произведения в московском концептуализме — «превращенное в предмет слово». «Закрытая рыбная выставка» блестяще иллюстрирует этот тезис: Макаревич и Елагина реконструировали экспозицию по названиям работ в каталоге (в нем не было иллюстраций), буквально овеществляя их в форме загадочных ассам‑бляжей‑ребусов, собранных в основном из найденных материалов.

Closed Fish Exhibition

Deck

Unok

In 1986, four friends decided to form an art group called World Champions. Despite its short life (the group disbanded in 1988), World Champions was one of the most striking artistic phenomena of the perestroika period. The backbone of the group comprised Gia Abramishvili, Konstantin Latyshev, Boris Matrosov and Andrei Yakhnin. They studied together at Moscow’s School No. 96 in Bolshoi Tishinsky Pereulok, where they were taught physics by a very special man, Evgeny Matusov. He organized meetings with interesting people for his students, including Boris Grebenshchikov, Sven Gundlakh, and Konstantin Zvezdochotov. Contact with these people grew into friendship and then joint artistic practice. 

 The “champions” selected irony as their main tool for dissecting both late‑1980s Soviet reality and the specific, closed world of unofficial art. They made fun of the unintelligible practices of the older generation of Moscow conceptualists and of state sport and public organizations, with their outdated methods of transforming groups of individuals into collectives. The group’s actions and demonstrations had an absurd and spontaneous character in which a sudden idea of a “meaningless feat” was immediately embodied, erasing the boundaries between art and life. The artists changed the direction of rivers, used shampoo and rags to clean the Black Sea cliffs and seafront, and created pictures and objects from worthless materials, with no interest in preserving them after they had been shown at a one‑day exhibition. 

 When creating drawings and paintings the “champions” parodied the team method of making state commissions for artistic products. Participants published a decree that defined in detail not only the image but also the quantity of materials available to the artist who would make it. The group’s garish, flashy paintings are stylistically similar to children’s drawings and lubok folk prints, comics, and posters.

 In 1986, four friends decided to form an art group called World Champions. Despite its short life (the group disbanded in 1988), World Champions was one of the most striking artistic phenomena of the perestroika period. The backbone of the group comprised Gia Abramishvili, Konstantin Latyshev, Boris Matrosov and Andrei Yakhnin. They studied together at Moscow’s School No. 96 in Bolshoi Tishinsky Pereulok, where they were taught physics by a very special man, Evgeny Matusov. He organized meetings with interesting people for his students, including Boris Grebenshchikov, Sven Gundlakh, and Konstantin Zvezdochotov. Contact with these people grew into friendship and then joint artistic practice. 

 The “champions” selected irony as their main tool for dissecting both late‑1980s Soviet reality and the specific, closed world of unofficial art. They made fun of the unintelligible practices of the older generation of Moscow conceptualists and of state sport and public organizations, with their outdated methods of transforming groups of individuals into collectives. The group’s actions and demonstrations had an absurd and spontaneous character in which a sudden idea of a “meaningless feat” was immediately embodied, erasing the boundaries between art and life. The artists changed the direction of rivers, used shampoo and rags to clean the Black Sea cliffs and seafront, and created pictures and objects from worthless materials, with no interest in preserving them after they had been shown at a one‑day exhibition. 

 When creating drawings and paintings the “champions” parodied the team method of making state commissions for artistic products. Participants published a decree that defined in detail not only the image but also the quantity of materials available to the artist who would make it. The group’s garish, flashy paintings are stylistically similar to children’s drawings and lubok folk prints, comics, and posters. 

Quickpack

Sketch 1

Untitled

Portraits of Hothouse Combine Workers, no. 3

Fishing Season (version)

Portraits of Hothouse Combine Workers, no. 1

1. Открытый доступ

Мастер

World Champions was a Moscow art group made up of a group of friends who had studied at School No. 98 and Krasnopresnenskaya Art School. The group included Gia Abramishvili, Konstantin Zvezdochotov, Konstantin Latyshev, Boris Matrosov, Andrei Yakhnin, and others. In 2021 there was a retrospective exhibition of the group’s work at Moscow Museum of Modern Art.

World Champions

Elena Elagina (1949–2022) was born in Moscow and studied in the Philology Faculty of Moscow Pedagogical Institute. 

 Igor Makarevich was born in 1943 in Trialeti (Georgian SSR). He studied in the Art Faculty of the All‑Union State Cinematography Institute (VGIK). 

 From the late 1970s they were involved with the group Collective Actions. The project Closed Fish Exhibition (1990) marked the beginning of their working together. Selected solo exhibitions: Within the Limits of the Beautiful, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow (2005); In Situ , Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (2009); Countdown , Moscow Museum of Modern Art (2020). They took part in the 53rd (main project, 2009) and 54th Venice Biennales (Russian Pavilion, as part of the exhibition Empty Zones. Andrei Monastyrski and Collective Actions, 2011). They are winners of the Innovation Prize in the nomination Contribution to the Development of Contemporary Art (2012) and the Moscow Prize in the nomination Visual Art and Architecture (2021).

Igor Makarevich and Elena Elagina 

Andrei Monastyrsky was born in Petsamo (Pechenga, Murmansk Oblast). He graduated from the Philology Faculty of Moscow State University. He was a founder (1976), theorist, and author of large‑scale actions in the group Collective Actions. He took part in the Biennale of Dissent (Venice, 1977), the 50th (main project, 2003), 52nd (main project, 2007) and 54th Venice Biennale (Russian Pavilion, 2011) and also documenta 12 (Kassel, 2007). He is a recipient of the Andrei Bely Prize for his important contribution to the development of Russian literature (2003) and the Innovation Prize in the nominations Theory, Criticism, Art History (2010) and For Creative Contribution to the Development of Contemporary Art (2015).

Monastyrsky Andrei

Boris Matrosov was born in Moscow. From 1986 to 1988 he was a member of World Champions and from 1988 Honorary Chair of the Avantgardists’ Club (KLAVA). He has been a member of the Moscow Union of Artists since 1994.

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