Pioneering Russian artist Erik Bulatov will inaugurate the series of Garage Atrium Commissions with two monumental paintings—installed on a nine and a half meters high structure in the entrance of the Museum—inviting guests to venture inside and discover the possibilities of art. This is the first time such a large-scale artwork by Bulatov has been commissioned in Moscow.
True to his particular use of text and imagery in painting, the artist creates a heartfelt slogan reminiscent of the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky’s advertising posters from the 1920s. The enthusiastic phrase Come to Garage! is inscribed within the rays of a rising sun, creating a picture that stands out as a warm proposition to the audience. Visible from Gorky Park, where thousands of people stroll daily in the summer, these words reflect the artist’s strong belief in the power of art as an appeal to expand viewers’ horizons.
Since the beginning of his career in the 1960s, Bulatov has continued investigations rooted in painting, becoming testimony to the ongoing potential of this tradition within contemporary practices. Often associated with the school of Moscow Conceptualism, alongside artists such as Ilya Kabakov, Collective Actions, and Komar & Melamid, among others, Bulatov developed what can be described as “conceptual painting”. In his pictures, imagery and words are used to explore space and light. In turn, these spatial preoccupations describe social relations in the real world. By analyzing closely the pictorial elements, one can understand how Soviet reality was so accurately chronicled by the artist: “I realized I have a very important instrument in my hands – the possibility to express a social issue through a spatial one.”
The inaugural Garage Atrium Commission was organized by Snejana Krasteva, Garage Curator.
