The museum is located at one of the capital’s many cultural crossroads on Myasnitskaya Street. You’ll find multiple galleries, museums and theaters just a stone’s throw away from it, with the Kremlin only a 10-minute walk away, as well. Across from the new museum is one of the district’s major tourist locations – the famous ‘Perlov Merchant’s Tea Shop’, built in the Chinese style. A striking visual contrast is created by the exotic facade of the store and the museum’s display windows, which also somewhat reveal its exhibition area.
The new museum is dedicated entirely to the unofficial Russian artform of the 1960s-1980s. The private collection of its founder, Nadezhda Brykina, includes the works of Anatoly Zverev, Igor Vulokh, Yuri Zlotnikov, Vladimir Yakovlev, Igor Shelkovsky and Aleksei Kamensky. The famed collector has been gathering their works for more than 30 years now, referring to nonconformism as “strong art”, evidenced in its representatives’ lack of regard for the system they were living in, which prevented them from displaying their work officially.
Aside from the aforementioned nonconformists, the museum’s collection includes the works of their students and followers, who continued developing their ideas through the modern times – artists, such as Olga and Oleg Tatarintsev, Vladimir Soskiyev and Mikhail Krunov.
The museum turned out to be very intimate: The ground floor houses a permanent exhibition, while on the first floor, you’ll find the temporary exhibition space. This arrangement affords visitors the opportunity to examine all the artworks at their own pace.
The museum aims to hit a target of four exhibitions a year. It’s currently running a Marlen Spindler exhibit titled ‘Before the Celebration’, which showcases more than 50 works from different periods of his life. The artist combines his day job as an industrial graphic and logo designer with his own artistic style. This includes his everlasting search of iconic depictions (Spindler saw Andrey Rublev as a teacher and liked to mix dyes and make his own burlap bases, in order to create his frescos).
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