Exhibition "Complex Show"

In the fall of 2021, the Museum of Art of St. Petersburg of the XX-XXI centuries presented two large-scale exhibition projects dedicated to the 30th anniversary of its collection.

The first of the two anniversary exhibitions - "Poems-I-Petersburg", which took place from September 22 to November 14, reflected the history of the development of the landscape genre, from the 1930s to the present day. The project introduced the audience to the incredible wealth of creative ideas and artistic interpretations that were demonstrated by the St. Petersburg masters of the twentieth century when referring to specific motives.

The second anniversary exhibition - "Complex Show" - will present to the audience new acquisitions that have added to the museum collection over the past 10 years.

The Museum of Art of St. Petersburg of the XX-XXI centuries was officially established in December 2015 on the basis of the collection, which began in 1991. The status of the state museum, located on the embankment of the Griboyedov Canal, 103, transferred the collection to a new quality, gave it scope, and most importantly, a historical meaning, which stimulated numerous receipts in the form of gifts from artists, their heirs, patrons who wished to define their works into worthy collections in order to preserve them for the future. Over the past 6 years, more than 1000 gifts have been received by MISP. However, the museum managed to replenish the collection, both thanks to official government purchases and acquisitions at its own expense. These works will also be included in the new exhibition.

The exhibition "Complex Spectacle" will feature works of outstanding masters of St. Petersburg of different generations and artistic confessions, starting from the 1930s. This will allow showing the collection in a peculiar, sometimes provocative neighborhood of eras, the intersection of creative ideas, styles and trends that are not equal in aesthetic content, coexisted and continue to live side by side in a single space of St. Petersburg.

The exhibition will feature picturesque portraits of the 1920s-1940s, made by famous masters: Vladimir Grinberg, Viktor Proshkin, Lydia Timoshenko, Nikolai Lapshin, Alexander Rusakov. The era of Soviet art will be reflected in portraits and genre compositions of the 1960s-1970s, created by Valery Vatenin, Kirill Gushchin, Nikolai Koshelkov, Viktor Teterin, Boris Shamanov, Olga Bogaevskaya and many other authors. The restless spirit of creative experiment, ideas of the latest achievements of contemporary art permeate the art objects of Vladimir Kozin, David Plaksin, Ilya Kreidun, Alexander Eremin, Valeria Nibiru, Vasily Dyakov, Ivan Plyushch.

The "Complex Spectacle" project, which includes more than 300 works (painting, graphics, sculpture and art objects), will become a vivid demonstration of how constantly evolving artistic processes affect the content of museum collections, helping to expand knowledge and ideas about the real picture of what is happening in modern culture.

A large-scale catalog will be published for the exhibition in two languages (Russian and English), presenting the best works of the collection of the Museum of Art of St. Petersburg of the XX-XXI centuries and containing a serious scientific block: introductory articles, biographies of artists, documentary archival photographs. The publication will help to understand the historical significance, development focuses and direction of movement of the collection.