State Tretyakov Gallery accused of making a ‘gross and unforgivable mistake’ in restructuring its contemporary art department

More than 200 Russian curators and art historians, both in the country and in exile, have written an open letter claiming that Moscow’s Tretyakov Gallery has ‘liquidated’ its contemporary art department, following a restructuring that saw it merged into a broader art department . from the second half of the 20th and 21st centuries. According to the letter, the move is a “gross and unforgivable mistake.”

The contemporary art department, known as the modern trends department, was founded in 2001 and was developed mainly from donations from artists and donors. Last week, the museum announced it would be combined with the Moscow Museum’s 20th Century Art Department, which includes both avant-garde and Soviet socialist realist art, and the “Experimental Art Fund,” which was established in the 1980s to focus on emerging art. work, to form the new department.

The protest letter – which was coordinated by Andrei Erofeev, who headed the modern trends department for six years from 2002 – warned that the restructuring is comparable to the early Soviet mutilation of Tretyakov’s contemporary collections. In the 1930s, when Soviet culture was under Stalin’s grasp, avant-garde works from the 1910s-20s were removed from the museum’s exhibitions, with many, the letter suggests, lost in the process.

“A similar fate may await the exhibitions of the current modern trends department,” it says. “After all, there are still many hundreds of donated works being processed. The liquidation of the division would disrupt this process. It will also halt work to replenish the collection with works by new generations of Russian artists. No less important consequence of this act will be the disappearance of a team of experienced specialists. Their work in researching and exhibiting the history of contemporary art is valued by the international museum community.”

Contemporary art in Russia, long a target of censorship and nationalist protest from the Kremlin, is under increasing pressure from censorship and political repression following Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Erofeev was fired by the Tretyakov in 2008 after being fired accused of fomenting religious hatred in connection with a contemporary art exhibition he curated at the now-closed Sakharov Museum and Public Center in Moscow.

In an earlier statement on its official Telegram channel, the Tretyakov Gallery denied that it was eliminating contemporary art: “The Tretyakov Gallery will certainly continue to engage in contemporary art, both in exhibition practice and in the field of raising funds.”

The museum, in an email to The Art Newspapersaid it was “providing no additional comment at this time.” It referred to a recent interview with Tatyana Karpova, the deputy director for research, in Rossiiskaya Gazetaan official government newspaper – discussing the restructuring.

“I see no reason to worry,” Karpova said in the interview. She said the merger was necessary, among other things, to simplify the cataloging process and the process of putting together retrospectives, adding: “It is more convenient if this is done by curators from one department instead of three”.

Collections threatened

In a Facebook post last week, Erofeev claimed that the reshuffling puts some 3,000 works from the Modern Trends collection at risk because they were not properly registered as part of the museum’s official “collection fund” and therefore “the museum is not obliged to put (them) on to hit’. Referring to the fact that the new department will be overseen by 20th century specialists – focused on painting and “not trained in the specifics of the genre of art objects, installations, performance and art photography” – he says he feels has that ‘nothing will be done’. ” to protect the endangered works.

Marat Guelman, a pioneer of contemporary art in Moscow and former political worker who left for Montenegro in 2014, left a major donation of works to the museum in 2019, including an installation by Ilya and Emilia Kabakov and works by Vladimir Dubossarsky . He told it The Art Newspaper that he hopes the staff will hide his gift “from the bosses”. As to whether his gift can be returned, he says: “It is unlikely: the items are too valuable.”

Tretyakov’s current director, Elena Pronicheva, who was appointed in 2023 and whose father had been a top Federal Security Service (FSB) official under Vladimir Putin, has not commented on the museum’s realignment.