Today, the conversation about the figure of the collector is becoming more and more relevant. It is collectors who influence our understanding of what contemporary art is and which artist should take a place in its history
Alexey Maslyaev, curator
The exhibition Things is a reflection on the phenomenon of collecting, represented on the example of two notable private collections of contemporary Russian art – the one of Denis Khimilyayne and the other one of Sergey Limonov.
The exhibition brings together more than 50 artworks of contemporary Russian artists including Vlad Kulkov, Alexander Tsikarishvili, Ilya Fedotov-Fedorov, Egor Kraft, Alexander Dashevsky, Evgeniy Antufyev, Sergey Bratkov, Tima Radya, Liza Bobkova, Pavel Otdelnov, and others.
The gallery is becoming a research platform focused on revising the standard exhibition genre. The Things exhibition is thematically divided into three parts. The exhibition on the ground floor is composed of works selected by the curator, which are not included in the collections of collectors, but indicate some of their inherent principles and features. On the second and third floors are placed works that collectors have chosen from each other's collections and would like to see as a part of their own collections. This approach is not only a gesture of recognition from a like-minded person, but also a way to demonstrate the amazing process of transforming things into a collection, that is a public statement shaping the landscape of contemporary Russian art.
