Sizzling Hot: Five Exhibits Where You Can Glimpse the Cutting Edge of International Art

Evgeny Granilshchikov 

The Last Song of the Evening  

Evgeny Granilshchikov is one of Russia’s most prominent video artists and a winner of the prestigious Kandinsky Award. Granilshchikov’s exhibition is part of the “Farewell to Eternal Youth” series, devoted to the 10th anniversary of Winzavod. His latest multimedia exhibition at Winzavod has a somewhat mysterious titled “The Last Song of the Evening” and mostly talks about the life of the artist himself and his friends from Moscow’s creative community. The characters in the videos watch the news or read them on social media, there’s some bits about the protests and arrests, about Navalny and Nemtsov. Someone plays the Russian national anthem on the electric guitar. Indie-pop singer-songwriter Nina Karlson wrote the music and she appears in the videos herself, sometimes half-naked. 

Until July 16

Raymond Pettibon 

The Cloud of Misreading 

A comprehensive retrospective of Raymond Pettibon, an American artist, was launched at the Garage Museum as part of the summer season. The exhibition is titled “The Cloud of Misreading,” and since Pettibon combines drawings and text in his works, some of them can literally be “misread.” To avoid this, Garage published a thick guidebook with explanations. The exhibition was put together by curators from the New Museum in New York. Pettibon started his career in South California and made posters and album art on LA punk scene. There’s also a lot of Jesus, a bunch of baseball and a bit of Stalin.

Sergey Shnurov 

Brand Realism: a Retrospective 

The most fun exhibit currently on view in Moscow is at the Tverskoy Boulevard branch of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art. It’s “Brand Realism: a Retrospective” by Sergey Shnurov a.k.a. Shnur, frontman of the band Leningrad, pop-rock hooligans from St. Petersburg. Sergey Shnurov doesn’t paint anymore, but he comes up with a concept which is then realized by a team of artists. Apparently brand realism, a genre invented by Shnur, is a direct descendant of pop-art so there are lots of portraits “a la Warhol” - from rock singer Zemfira to notorious State Duma Deputy Vitaly Milonov. There’s a bit of everything at the exhibition including installations with street art, paintings and colored screen shots from Leningrad videos. There’s also skulls, penises, a Coca-cola coffin and references to artists from Marc Chagall to Damien Hirst. Until July 12 

Ilmira Bolotyan 

Date at the Museum 

Ilmira Bolotyan presents her new project “Date at the Museum,” which took more than year to create at the Fragment gallery. The artist signed up for several dating services, including Tinder, and specified that she was only prepared to go on a date to a contemporary art museum. Ilmira’s objective was to turn a date with a woman into a date with contemporary art. At the exhibition we can see screenshots of some of the more “juicy” conversations the artist had with her suitors. Twelve men agreed to meet with Ilmira and she drew what she calls “an emotional portrait” of each one of them. There’s also video footage from some of the dates as well as intriguing infographics about the world of dating in Russia.  

Until June 23 

Shabolovka Gallery  

Museum of Avant-Garde 

Shabolovka Gallery and Avant-Garde Center opened a Museum of Avant-Garde, located in one of the gallery’s rooms. It’s a perfect place since the gallery itself is housed on the ground floor of a 1920s constructivist residential building. The Shukhov Tower and the experimental housing project, the Communal House of the Textile Institute, are a short walk away. The Museum focuses on preserving what remains of the original interiors and decorations of this historical neighborhood. There are photographs, videos, old toys, and interior design from 1920s apartments. There are lots of empty shelves at the Museum that will gradually fill up with items brought in by the local residents.