Garage Museum of Contemporary Art has a public library on Russian and international contemporary art open to all visitors. Garage Library is a reference library and has a collection of 45,000 books, including catalogues of solo and group exhibitions and studies on contemporary art and culture.

Launched in 2014, Garage Library became the first public library in Russia devoted entirely to the art of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Publications available at the library cover a wide range of subjects related to the development of art from early modernism and the avant-garde to the present day: artistic practices, contemporary philosophy, cultural studies, social theory, gender and postcolonial studies, media theory, visual studies, photography, architecture, design, cinema, theatre, and fiction

The collection keeps expanding with the addition of new publications. Along with exhibition catalogues from Russian and international museums (Tretyakov Gallery, Russian Museum, Stedelijk, Centre Pompidou, MoMA), the library acquires new studies released by leading Russian and international publishers (NLO, HSE, MIT Press, Hatje Cantz, Gestalten). In addition to new releases, the library boasts a collection of rare books.

A wide selection of periodicals from across the world includes key journals on visual art (Artforum, Flash Art, Mousse), photography (Aperture, Camera Austria, Foam) and architecture (Architectural Review, Domus, Mark). Along with recent issues, the library holds copies of rare archived issues of art theory and criticism journals (October, Third Text), and Russian periodicals from before and after perestroika (A-Ya, Mesto pechati, Kabinet, Dekorativnoye iskusstvo).

All books and catalogues published by Garage, including those in collaboration with Ad Marginem Press, are also available at the library.

Visitors can access the online catalogue to search for books and periodicals by subject, key words, authors, and personalities.

Several tables at the library are equipped with computers; visitors have access to the Internet and academic resources like Artstor and JSTOR, and are welcome to use the free scanners.

To bring books in its collection to the public attention, Garage Library runs a program of public events and reading groups.

In 2017, the library launched Single Copy, a project to support the development of the genre of the artist’s book in Russia.

Guidelines for Garage Library visitors

1. Garage Library is open by appointment seven days a week. The number of visitors allowed in the library space at any one time is limited to twenty. We ask visitors to observe a safe distance.

2. Library visitors must wear masks. We also recommend wearing gloves.

3. Applications to work in the library should be sent to library.visit@garagemca.org and must be submitted no later than 24 hours before the planned visit. The librarian will confirm the visit during the working day. Applications received after 21:00 will be processed on the following day, which may affect the date of the visit.

In the application, please indicate the planned date and time of your visit (from 11:00 to 21:00). Time in the library is limited to two hours.

Library catalogue

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