Garage Center for Contemporary Culture presents the first exhibition in Russia by The Museum of Everything - the world's first and only travelling museum for undiscovered, unintentional and untrained artists.
Exhibition #5 is the largest survey of contemporary, self-taught, non-traditional art in Russia today. It is the culmination of a summer-long journey across the country, during which The Museum of Everything travelled to Yekaterinburg, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Saint Petersburg and Moscow to find unknown artists.
All participants were documented, photographed and filmed, and local exhibitions of their work were held in each of the cities visited. The films of The Museum of Everything journey can be seen at www.musevery.ru.
Exhibition #5 features over 50 newly discovered artists, all working in diverse and unexpected contexts. Their artworks - generally created without any formal or academic training - reveal highly personal and authentic forms of expression, uninhibited by influences from established art circles.
The Museum of Everything aims to introduce these artworks to a wide audience, broadening our understanding of what can be termed or accepted as contemporary art. Most importantly, Exhibition #5 reveals some of the most unusual and invisible creative voices in 21st century Russia, including elderly, amateur and homeless artists, and artists with learning and physical disabilities.
Exhibition #5 also includes work by some of Russia's historic self-taught artists, including Pavel Leonov, Alexander Lobanov and Nicolai Almazov. These examples illustrate the rich tradition of non-professional art within Russian culture, which has influenced artists like Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich and Natalia Goncharova, and contemporary artists like Ilya and Emilia Kabakov.
"We invite everyone to see Exhibition #5 for themselves. The show will finally dispel the myth that artists must be formally educated, informed and contextualised. Our discoveries represent an alternative history of art, one whose legacy spans hundreds of years of authentic, unremembered creativity. For these are no outsiders, far from it ... they are Russia's cultural heartbeat!"
— James Brett, The Museum of Everything
Education Program. The Museum of Everything // Exhibition #5 will include lectures, guided tours and open workshops.
Since its creation in 2009, The Museum of Everything has become one of the world's foremost institutions for self-taught and non-traditional art. A vocal advocate for the alternative history of art, it actively promotes the artists it discovers, functioning both as an archive and an exhibitor.
Almost 500,000 people have visited The Museum of Everything over the last three years, including Chalet Society (Paris 2012/13), Selfridges (London 2011), Agnelli Museum (Turin 2010) and Tate Modern (London 2010).
Major museum shows featuring artists from The Museum of Everything include Rosemarie Trockel (Reina Sophia, New Museum and Serpentine Gallery), Morton Bartlett and George Widener (Hamburger Bahnhof). Artists from The Museum of Everything will also be featured in the 2013 Venice Biennale.
The Museum of Everything has created a series of award-winning books, films and a retail brand. A registered UK charity, it is also the founder of The Workshops of Everything, a global initiative for artists with learning disabilities.
For more information, please visit www.musevery.com or www.musevery.ru.
The Friends of Everything
The Museum of Everything works with some of the world's leading artists, writers, curators and thinkers, including:
Ron Arad (designer), Charles Avery (artist), John Baldessari (artist/professor), Daniel Baumann (curator), Bruno Bischofberger (gallerist), Tom di Maria (director, Creative Growth), Sir Peter Blake (artist), Iwona Blazwick OBE (director, Whitechapel Gallery), Christian Boltanski (artist), Louisa Buck (writer, The Art Newspaper), David Byrne (artist/musician), Roger Cardinal (writer/curator), Maurizio Cattelan (artist/curator), Nick Cave (artist /musician), Jarvis Cocker (artist/musician), Paolo Columbo (curator), Lynne Cook (curator), Christiane Cuticchio (director, Atelier Goldstein), Jeremy Deller (artist), Chris Dercon (director, Tate Modern), Lee Friedlander (photographer), Massimiliano Gioni (curator), Antony Gormley (sculptor), Matthew Higgs (artist/curator), Carsten Höller (artist), Klara Kristalova (sculptor), James Lingwood (co-director, Artangel), Annette Messager (artist), Jockum Nordström (artist), Hans Ulrich Obrist (curator, co-director, Serpentine Gallery), Grayson Perry (artist), Adam Phillips (writer), Sir Ken Robinson (educator), Sir Norman Rosenthal (curator), Ralph Rugoff (director, Hayward Gallery), Ed Ruscha (artist), Peter Saville (designer), Cindy Sherman (artist), Jamie Shovlin (artist), Bob & Roberta Smith (artist), Leonid Tishkov (artist), Pete Townshend (musician), Francesco Vezzoli (artist), Sue Webster (artist), Alannah Weston (creative director, Selfridges), JJDavies Gallerie (Elena Bobrusova-Davies).
