Garage - Museum of the year 2020!
The Cosmoscow Foundation is pleased to announce that in 2020 The Garage Museum of Contemporary art will be the “Museum of the Year” at the Cosmoscow international contemporary art fair, and with it recipient of significant gifts to its archival collection.
An event publicizing the collaboration between the organizations was staged, today, Wednesday 19 February at the Garage—with presentations by the founder and director of Cosmoscow, Margarita Pushkina, the director of the Garage, Anton Belov, and the artistic director of Cosmoscow, Simon Rees.
As a logical continuation of the fair's non-commercial initiatives, the Cosmoscow Foundation for contemporary art was founded in 2017, and has since that time commissioned and produced a number of initiatives and major projects. Some of the projects were showcased at the fair, while others were staged in major museums and events, internationally. Importantly, the foundation undertakes an impressive museum acquisition program, which has in recent years, resulted in major gifts to the collections of the State Tretyakov Gallery, the Pushkin Museum, and the Moscow Museum of Modern Art
According to Margarita Pushkina: "the Fair and the Cosmoscow Foundation are constantly striving to establish new partnerships, collaborations, and search for new ways to develop the potential of the Russian contemporary art market and the art scene. We consider the Garage Museum of contemporary art one of the most dynamic cultural institutions in Russia, with which we share many values and views, and we are pleased to announce Garage as the “Museum of the year”. I look forward to working with Garage."
Throughout the year, the Cosmoscow Foundation for contemporary art and the Garage will implement a number of joint projects. The foundation will acquire for the Museum's archive collection, which is the largest repository on the history of Russian modern and contemporary art, three important archives: the archive of the St. Petersburg gallery Navicula Artis; handwritten and illustrated catalogues of Eugene and Leo Kropiwnicki; and the archive of Andrey Chirkov (Remizova), which contains letters of Andrei Sinyavsky. The Museum's stand will be presented at the Cosmoscow fair, which will be held on September 10-13.
Additionally, and following on from 2019, a percentage of proceeds from entrance tickets to the fair will be transferred to the Garage Endowment Fund; while Anton Belov will take a place on the Collectors’ Board of the fair.
Explaining the partnerships, Anton Belov, has highlighted that "the Cosmoscow Fair is a great example of how enthusiasm and faith in your own business can bring tangible results. Over the years, Cosmoscow has found its face, gained fame, and formed a large community around itself. Every Cosmoscow fair is an international event, and I am very happy that the focus of the fair, despite the abundance of participants from all over the world, is always on Russian artists. The Garage team highly appreciates the status of the "Museum of the year" and the fair's support for the fundamental elements of our activity-the Archive and the Endowment Fund."
Making the most of the partnership, the Garage will be very present at the fair in September, with its book and souvenir stores where you can buy exhibition catalogues, books and albums on classical and modern art, photography, fashion, design and architecture from the world's leading publishers, including Thames & Hudson, Taschen, Hatje Cantz, Rizzoli, Prestel, Phaidon, books from the Museum's joint publishing program and Ad Marginem, and Souvenirs accompanying Garage's major exhibition projects and Garage’s branded clothing line.
Cosmoscow’s artistic director, Simon Rees, who is a former museum director and senior curator, is "gratified that the Cosmoscow Foundation and The Garage Endowment are setting a benchmark for organisational partnerships in Russia, that could well be followed by other organisations in years to come. There is a tendency, particularly in the way that people express themselves online and in social media, to pitch organisations against each other in the spirit of market competition rather than sharing ideas and wishes for the development of strategic partnerships that have exponential outcomes. This is certainly one such partnership: that is advancing models of patronage; and enabling The Garage to advance museum practice via its timely archival acquisitions project."
