“We Treasure Our Lucid Dreams”. The Other East Esoteric Knowledge In Russian Art 1905 – 1969

  • Location Moscow, Russia
  • Client Garage Museum of Contemporary Art
  • Year 2020
  • Status Completed
  • Program Cultural
  • Curator Katya Inozemtseva – Andrey Misiano
  • Research Team Daria Bobrenko, Oksana Polyakova, Anastasia Chebotareva
  • Research Advisors Alexey Ulko, Boris Chukhovich, Oleg Shishkin
  • Team Ekaterina Golovatyuk
    Giacomo Cantoni
    Ksenia Bisti
    Ivano Viceconte
  • Surface 750 sqm
  • Press artforum
    russian art focus
    the moscow times
    buro 24/7

“We Treasure Our Lucid Dreams”. The Other East Esoteric Knowledge In Russian Art 1905 – 1969 is the result of a major reasearch project undertaken by Garage Museum of Contemporary Art together with art critic Alexey Ulko and artist Alexandra Sukhareva.
Bringing together over 150 artworks, artefacts, and archive documents, the exhibition takes a close look at the creative projects of artists who were members of secret societies or constructed individual practices informed by their esoteric interests. Many among these bearers of “secret knowledge” fell victim to Stalin-era repressions: they were executed, sent to prison camps, abandoned their beliefs or lost their archives.” (1)

GRACE designed the exhibition architecture, declined as three different types of spaces, arranged as subsequent rooms along Garage’s East Gallery and clothed with 850 meters of pleated veil.
The distinctive character of these three types of space – the shrine, the archive and the museum – is generated by the different angle of the exhibition surface on which the artworks or the archival material are displayed. The ethereal background defines the spaces of the show as suspended environments and suggests a timeless and mystic atmosphere. The uniformity of the fabric enables to unify in one narrative very different materials, such as paintings, graphics, sculptures and archival documents, while highlighting their uniqueness and individuality.
The natural light filtering from the translucent polycarbonate façade of Garage Museum, highlights the thin colored structure behind the white voile and the verticality of the pleats, emphasizing the levity of the scene.

(1) From the curatorial text by Katya Inozemtseva and Andrey Misiano

photo by alexey naroditsky courtesy of garage museum of contemporary art
photo by alexey naroditsky courtesy of garage museum of contemporary art
photo by alexey naroditsky courtesy of garage museum of contemporary art
photo by alexey naroditsky courtesy of garage museum of contemporary art
photo by alexey naroditsky courtesy of garage museum of contemporary art
photo by alexey naroditsky courtesy of garage museum of contemporary art
photo by alexey naroditsky courtesy of garage museum of contemporary art
photo by alexey naroditsky courtesy of garage museum of contemporary art
photo by alexey naroditsky courtesy of garage museum of contemporary art
photo by alexey naroditsky courtesy of garage museum of contemporary art
photo by alexey naroditsky courtesy of garage museum of contemporary art