Exhibition in the Kremlin in March of the year. The Moscow Kremlin museums will host an exhibition "Saint Louis and the relics of Sainte-Chapelle
Big names and anniversary celebrations, space expansion and amusement installations - all this became the key to the success of the world's largest museums and the most popular exhibitions in 2017
Exhibition “Masterpieces of New Art. The Shchukin Collection” at the Louis Vuitton Foundation. Photo: Manuel Lagos Cid/Getty Images
Celebrating its fourth anniversary, the Fondation Louis Vuitton Museum in Paris made a huge leap last year, hosting more than 1.2 million people who came to see French Impressionist and Modernist works collected by Russian industrialist Sergei Shchukin between 1898 and 1914.
Ancient sculptures in Tokyo against modernists in Paris
At the exhibition “Masterpieces of New Art. Shchukin Collection” Russian museums, primarily the State Hermitage Museum and the State Museum of Fine Arts. A. S. Pushkin, provided a first-class selection of works by Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, not to mention other masters of European modernism, as well as masterpieces of the Russian avant-garde from the State Tretyakov Gallery. Thus, the exhibition in the Parisian private museum, founded by the French billionaire Bernard Arnault, set a world attendance record.
Exhibition "Isamu Noguchi, Archaic, Modern" at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Photo: Smithsonian American Art Museum
Although the exhibition of the Shchukin collection outperformed all others in terms of total number of visitors, we still evaluate and compare exhibitions by the average number of visitors per day, and not by the absolute result (see calculation methodology). That is why, despite the fact that the Louis Vuitton Foundation was visited by 8926 people per day (hereinafter referred to as b/d), the exhibition in Paris takes the second place after the exhibition of 22 Buddhist sculptures by the Japanese artist Unkei (1150-1223) in the Tokyo National Museum. This retrospective gathered about 11.3 thousand people a day.
Brazil, the UK and Taiwan have traditionally dominated the list of the world's 20 most popular exhibitions, but in 2017 Australia, Spain and France also made the list. Many exhibitions at the Taipei Imperial Palace Museum this year have moved to the General Ticket category (exhibitions that do not sell a separate ticket or where admission to the permanent exhibition is included in the ticket price). French museums that did not make the top 20 in 2016 are now in four places. And here is a free traveling exhibition dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Dutch group De Stijl (“Mondrian and De Stijl”, 6700 h / d), at the Cultural Center of the Bank of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro - the only one from Brazil in the top 20. In 2016 there were six.
Gerrit Rietveld. Red and blue armchair. 1919-1950. At the exhibition "Mondrian and the group
De Stijl" at the cultural center of the Bank of Brazil. Photo: Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
Anniversaries or renewals are a good reason to visit a museum
Anniversaries always help to increase the number of visitors, and last year was no exception. Programs dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao ensured the appearance of Spain in our ranking. A retrospective by video artist Bill Viola, works created by Georg Baselitz around the age of 20, and a film by American experimental filmmaker Ken Jacobs, which includes footage from the 19th century by the Lumière brothers, each attracted over 6,100 h/d. The celebration also boosted overall Guggenheim attendance by more than 150,000 to 1.3 million, the second-highest in its history. Another anniversary brought the Reina Sofia Center of the Arts in Madrid to the top: 5,200 h/d saw Picasso's Guernica in honor of the 80th anniversary of its creation.
Museums that benefited from the anniversary celebrations include the Beyeler Foundation Museum in Basel, which celebrated its 20th anniversary with a Monet exhibition (2300 h/d), which became the second most popular in its history, as well as the Museum of Modern Art in Chicago, where the 50th anniversary was celebrated with an increase an audience of 125,000. In Australia, the Sugar Spiral (4,700 h/d) exhibition at the Queensland Art Gallery in Brisbane easily made it into the top 20. A group exhibition of contemporary artists, in which museum visitors were given the opportunity to glide between floors thanks to Carsten Heller's Left/Right Slide attraction, was among the museum's tenth anniversary events. In 2017, it had a record number of visitors - 1.4 million, which is 760 thousand people more than in 2016. Another big jump in visitor numbers in Australia and New Zealand was at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, which saw 540,000 more visitors in 2017 thanks to record-breaking 6,100 h/d in Vincent van Gogh and fashion house Dior ( 3800 h/d).
Ken Jacobs. "Guests". Exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. Photo: Guggenheim museum Bilbao
For years now, the crowds have gone crazy for Yayoi Kusama (the Japanese artist's traveling exhibition topped our list in 2014), so the National Art Center in Tokyo hit the bull's-eye with 270 of her works for its tenth anniversary. This exposition (6700 h/d) is the fifth most popular in our rating and the most popular exhibition of the living artist. Kusama also helped nearly double attendance at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington from 659,000 to 1.1 million. But at that museum, she was overtaken by Yoko Ono's interactive show (3,000 h/d), where viewers could add their wishes to the artist's Wishing Tree.
Another Washington-based museum, the National Gallery of Art, saw a 1 million increase in attendance last year, a success it owes to the opening of an expanded East Building in the fall of 2016 with a collection of 750 contemporary art. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) also benefited from a $305 million expansion, with 1.1 million people showing up to see the museum's new wing, designed by Swedish firm Snøhetta.
Pablo Picasso. "Guernica". 1937. Exhibition "Pity and Terror" at the Reina Sofia Art Center, Madrid. Photo: Succession Picasso
America's Golden Throne
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City is an unexpected hit with Maurizio Cattelan's golden toilet bowl installed in the closet. A well-functioning toilet caused a buzz when the museum's chief curator, Nancy Spector, offered it to the White House in place of a van Gogh painting requested by the Donald Trump administration. The golden sanitary ware fell into our “General Ticket” category, as it is difficult to determine which of the museum's 3,000 visitors a day just came to look at Cattelan's creation, and who used it for its intended purpose. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) remains the leader in New York: the Robert Rauschenberg retrospective (5500 h/d) was the most popular exhibition in the city, and it is interesting that in New York Rauschenberg received almost four times as many visitors as the same exhibition in London (1500 h/d).
Plywood by Pink Floyd
For London's Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), 2017 was the most successful year in its history, with just under 3.8 million visitors thanks to an eclectic program that included an exhibition on lingerie, the unknown history of plywood and a psychedelic exploration of the British music group Pink Floyd. Surprisingly, more people came to see the plywood (2324 h/d) than Pink Floyd (2258 h/d). Probably because the former was free and the latter were some of the most expensive tickets in London.
Museums of the Vatican. Photo: TASS / Alamy
Overall, it has been a mixed year for museums in London. Fewer blockbusters and fewer tourists, which means fewer audiences. Attendance at the National Portrait Gallery and the British Museum fell by 677,000 and 514,000 respectively. But the National Gallery received the heaviest blow: the number of its visitors decreased by more than 1 million - and this despite the exhibition “After Caravaggio” (2100 hours / day) about the influence of the Italian genius on contemporaries, which became the most popular in the museum and the sixth among the most successful paid exhibitions in London.
The number of visitors to Tate Modern in 2017 decreased by 183 thousand. Meanwhile, located on the other side of the Thames, Tate Britain broke its own record, receiving almost 1.8 million people. A 4,300 hr/d retrospective of British star David Hockney (4,300 hr/d) helped boost audiences by as much as 2,900 hr/d by a living artist across the Tate Gallery (the previous record was held by Damien Hirst at the Tate Modern in 2012). ). But despite Hockney's success at home, even more people lined up to see his exhibition in Paris (5,800 h/d), making the Center Pompidou the second most visited in the French capital last year.
National Museum of China in Beijing. Photo: TASS
New hero from China
In the ranking of the most visited museums, there was a noticeable castling and a new hero appeared. The National Museum of China, the behemoth on Tiananmen Square, which boasts a collection of more than 1 million works of art, for the first time appears in our ranking in second place (8.06 million visitors a year) and just falls short of the first, long occupied by the Louvre , which is still recovering from a drop in attendance in 2016 after the attacks in Paris (from 8.6 million in 2015 to 7.4 million in 2016). Last year, 8.1 million people came to the Louvre, and so far it remains the most popular museum in the world.
Methodology
The average number of visitors per day (h/d) is calculated automatically by the database. The number of days the exhibition has been open, taking into account unexpected closures, is calculated, and then the total attendance figure is divided by the number of days.
All data used is provided by museums and galleries.
Some museums offer multiple exhibitions on one ticket - they are shown as one visit.
Exhibitions that were free to visit, whether it was the entire museum or an individual exhibition, are marked with an asterisk (*).
Painting by Vincent van Gogh on display at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. Photo: National Gallery of Victoria
The most visited art museums in the world. Top 50
| Place in the ranking | Total number of visitors | Museum | City |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 8 100 000 | Louvre | Paris |
| 2 | 8 062 625 | National Museum of China | Beijing |
| 3 | 6 692 909 | Metropolitan Museum* | New York |
| 4 | 6 427 277 | Vatican Museums | Vatican |
| 5 | 5 906 000 | British museum | London |
| 6 | 5 656 004 | Tate Modern | London |
| 7 | 5 232 277 | National Art Gallery | Washington |
| 8 | 5 229 192 | National Gallery | London |
| 9 | 4 436 118 | Imperial Palace Museum | Taipei |
| 10 | 4 220 133 | State Hermitage | St. Petersburg |
| 11 | 3 880 812 | Madrid | |
| 12 | 3 789 748 | Victoria and Albert Museum | London |
| 13 | 3 476 606 | National Museum of Korea | seoul |
| 14 | 3 370 872 | Pompidou Center | Paris |
| 15 | 3 223 350 | Somerset House | London |
| 16 | 3 177 842 | Musee d'Orsay | Paris |
| 17 | 2 986 908 | Tokyo | |
| 18 | 2 824 404 | National Prado Museum | Madrid |
| 19 | 2 752 719 | Modern Art Museum | New York |
| 20 | 2 746 405 | Museums of the Moscow Kremlin | Moscow |
| 21 | 2 723 955 | Tokyo | |
| 22 | 2 522 696 | National Gallery of Victoria** | Melbourne |
| 23 | 2 363 090 | Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture | Washington |
| 24 | 2 255 010 | Van Gogh Museum | Amsterdam |
| 25 | 2 235 355 | Uffizi Gallery | Florence |
| 26 | 2 178 825 | Tokyo National Museum | Tokyo |
| 27 | 2 165 601 | National Museum of Scotland | Edinburgh |
| 28 | 2 160 000 | Rijksmuseum | Amsterdam |
| 29 | 2 087 597 | Shanghai | |
| 30 | 2 024 000 | State Tretyakov Gallery | Moscow |
| 31 | 1 813 626 | National Folk Art Museum of Korea | seoul |
| 32 | 1 809 568 | Saatchi Gallery | London |
| 33 | 1 777 877 | Tate Britain | London |
| 34 | 1 623 677 | Academy Gallery | Florence |
| 35 | 1 619 316 | Art Institute of Chicago | Chicago |
| 36 | 1 600 761 | National Galleries of Scotland** | Edinburgh |
| 37 | 1 590 410 | Acropolis Museum | Athens |
| 38 | 1 544 000 | National Gallery | Singapore |
| 39 | 1 451 801 | Getty Center** | Los Angeles |
| 40 | 1 436 941 | Tokyo | |
| 41 | 1 427 225 | Gazebo | Vein |
| 42 | 1 425 826 | Queensland Art Gallery** | Brisbane |
| 43 | 1 424 149 | Museum of Art History | Vein |
| 44 | 1 412 060 | National Galleries of the Grand Palais | Paris |
| 45 | 1 402 245 | Louis Vuitton Foundation | Paris |
| 46 | 1 389 696 | Royal Ontario Museum | Toronto |
| 47 | 1 353 176 | Australian Center for Moving Images | Melbourne |
| 48 | 1 337 566 | Rio de Janeiro | |
| 49 | 1 323 837 | Montreal Museum of Fine Arts | Montreal |
| 50 | 1 322 611 | Guggenheim Museum | Bilbao |
* Excluding Metropolitan Breuer attendance (398,922), but including Cloisters attendance.
** Institutions located in several buildings are marked with an asterisk. This year, we have separated different sites to get more accurate traffic data for each of them. Additional venues and overall attendance figures are as follows: National Gallery of Victoria (Australian National Gallery of Victoria 613,801; total attendance 3,136,497); National Galleries of Scotland (National Gallery of Modern Art Scotland - 605,766; National Portrait Gallery of Scotland - 358,199; total attendance - 2,564,726); Getty Center (Getty Villa - 379,214; total attendance - 1,831,015); Queensland Art Gallery of Contemporary Art (Art Gallery of Queensland - 751,406; total attendance - 2,177,232).
Exhibition "Sugar Spiral" at the Art Gallery of Queensland. Photo: Natasha Harth
50 most visited art exhibitions in the world
| Place in the ranking | Average number of visitors per day | Total number of visitors | Exhibition | Area | City | Dates |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 11 268 | 600 439 | Unkei, the great master of Buddhist sculpture | Tokyo National Museum | Tokyo | September 26 - November 26 |
| 2 | 8 926 | 1 205 063 | Masterpieces of new art. Shchukin collection | Louis Vuitton Foundation | Paris | October 22, 2016 – March 5, 2017 |
| 3 | 8 505 | 657 350 | Alphonse Mucha | Tokyo National Art Center | Tokyo | March 8 - June 5 |
| 4 | 7 509 | 833 490 | Artists Artists* | Saatchi Gallery | London | November 30, 2016 – March 22, 2017 |
| 5 | 6 714 | 518 893 | Yayoi Kusama. My immortal soul | Tokyo National Art Center | Tokyo | February 22 - May 22 |
| 6 | 6 687 | 516 834 | Mondrian and De Stijl* | Cultural Center of the Bank of Brazil | Rio de Janeiro | |
| 7 | 6 388 | 597 702 | Ken Jacobs. Guests | Guggenheim Museum | Bilbao | July 27 - November 12 |
| 8 | 6 229 | 710 995 | Bill Viola. retrospective | Guggenheim Museum | Bilbao | June 30 - November 9 |
| 9 | 6 161 | 534 221 | George Baselitz. Heroes | Guggenheim Museum | Bilbao | July 14 - October 22 |
| 10 | 6 082 | 462 262 | Van Gogh and the Seasons | Melbourne | April 28 - July 12 | |
| 11 | 5 813 | 379 527 | Brueghel's "Tower of Babel" | Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art | Tokyo | April 18 - July 2 |
| 12 | 5 788 | 620 945 | David Hockney | Pompidou Center | Paris | June 21 - October 23 |
| 13 | 5 568 | 597 390 | Rene Magritte. Treachery of images | Pompidou Center | Paris | September 21, 2016 – January 23, 2017 |
| 14 | 5 500 | 660 052 | Robert Rauschenberg. Among friends | New York | May 21 - September 17 | |
| 15 | 5 415 | 693 125 | Isamu Noguchi, archaic, modern* | Washington | November 11, 2016 – March 19, 2017 | |
| 16 | 5 198 | 245 795 | Tea ceremony. The quintessence of Japan | Tokyo National Museum | Tokyo | April 11 - June 4 |
| 17 | 5 154 | 681 127 | Pity and terror. Picasso's path to Guernica | Reina Sofia Art Center | Madrid | April 4 - September 4 |
| 18 | 5 145 | 569 673 | Signac, Redon, Toulouse-Lautrec | Guggenheim Museum | Bilbao | May 12 - September 17 |
| 19 | 5 090 | 453 740 | Mystical landscape from Monet to Kandinsky | Musee d'Orsay | Paris | March 13 - June 25 |
| 20 | 4 729 | 628 924 | Sugar spiral. You, me, art and everything in the world * | Queensland Art Gallery/GoMA | Brisbane | December 3, 2016 – April 17, 2017 |
| 21 | 4 693 | 750 943 | From selfie to self-expression* | Saatchi Gallery | London | March 31 - September 6 |
| 22 | 4 657 | 415 773 | Portraits of Cezanne | Musee d'Orsay | Paris | June 13 - September 24 |
| 23 | 4 613 | 539 688 | Francis Picabia | Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) | New York | November 21, 2016 – March 19, 2017 |
| 24 | 4 562 | 520 046 | Foundation Carmignac Award* | Saatchi Gallery | London | May 16 - September 6 |
| 25 | 4 519 | 426 036 | Frederic Basile (1841–1870). The Youth of Impressionism | Musee d'Orsay | Paris | November 15, 2016 – March 5, 2017 |
| 26 | 4 450 | 351 574 | Los Carpinteros. Living object* | Cultural Center of the Bank of Brazil | Rio de Janeiro | May 3 - August 2 |
| 27 | 4 446 | 313 131 | Masterpieces from the collection of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts | Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art | Tokyo | July 20 - October 9 |
| 28 | 4 389 | 365 562 | Arcimboldo. Nature in art | National Museum of Western Art | Tokyo | June 20 - September 24 |
| 29 | 4 346 | 478 082 | David Hockney | Tate Britain | London | February 9 - May 29 |
| 30 | 4 344 | 406 435 | Pierre Huig. (Untitled). human mask | Guggenheim Museum | Bilbao | March 30 - July 16 |
| 31 | 4 260 | 325 000 | Vermeer and the masters of genre painting | Louvre | Paris | February 22 - May 22 |
| 32 | 4 210 | 300 102 | Tadao Ando. exploits | National Art Center | Tokyo | September 27 - December 18 |
| 33 | 4 087 | 217 791 | Human figure in the collection of the Sao Paulo Art Museum* | Cultural Center of the Bank of Brazil | Rio de Janeiro | February 8 - April 10 |
| 34 | 4 039 | 180 596 | Cicero Diaz. Poetic Journey* | Cultural Center of the Bank of Brazil | Rio de Janeiro | August 5 - September 25 |
| 35 | 4 035 | 208 097 | Yoko Ono. The sky is still blue, you know | Tomie Otake Institute | Sao Paulo | March 30 - May 28 |
| 36 | 4 033 | 311 665 | Patricia Piccinini. Consciousness* | Cultural Center of the Bank of Brazil | Belo Horizonte | October 12, 2016 – January 9, 2017 |
| 37 | 3 977 | 269 834 | Zhao Bandi. chinese party | Ullens Center for Contemporary Art | Beijing | August 5 - October 22 |
| 38 | 3 946 | 365 874 | Flash forward. Painting of the 1980s | Whitney Museum | New York | January 27 - May 14 |
| 39 | 3 931 | 364 475 | Pello Irazu. Panorama | Guggenheim Museum | Bilbao | March 10 - June 25 |
| 40 | 3 873 | 395 000 | Donald Sultan. Disaster pictures* | Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) | Washington | May 26 - September 4 |
| 41 | 3 809 | 327 000 | Diana Arbus | San Francisco | January 21 - April 30 | |
| 42 | 3 781 | 276 034 | House of Dior. 70 years of high fashion | National Gallery of Victoria | Melbourne | August 27 - November 7 |
| 43 | 3 732 | 515 000 | American visionary. The Life and Times of John F. Kennedy* | Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) | Washington | May 3 – September 17 |
| 44 | 3 719 | 267 261 | Bruce Conner | San Francisco Museum of Contemporary Art (SFMOMA) | San Francisco | October 29, 2016 – January 22, 2017 |
| 45 | 3 676 | 338 209 | Louise Lawler. Why are the paintings now | Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) | New York | April 30 - July 30 |
| 46 | 3 628 | 355 000 | Elegance and luxury of Art Deco. Kyoto Costume Institute, jewelry houses Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels | Museums of the Moscow Kremlin | Moscow | September 20, 2016 – January 11, 2017 |
| 47 | 3 627 | 370 000 | History of the world in 100 items* | shanghai art museum | Shanghai | June 29 - October 8 |
| 48 | 3 594 | 304 434 | Francis Bacon. From Picasso to Velasquez | Guggenheim Museum | Bilbao | September 30, 2016 – January 8, 2017 |
| 49 | 3 549 | 419 740 | Masterpieces from the collection of the Bridgestone Art Museum | Orangerie Museum | Paris | April 5 - August 21 |
| 50 | 3 443 | 434 263 | Giovanni dal Ponte | Academy Gallery | Florence | November 22, 2016 – April 17, 2017 |
Maurice Denis. "Procession under the trees." 1893. Exhibition "Mystical Landscape from Monet to Kandinsky" at the Musée d'Orsay. Photo: Musee d'Orsay/Henry Lewandowski
The most visited free exhibitions and visits in the "General ticket" format. Top 15
This year's General Ticket category is topped by Art Night, a free one-night festival at various venues in London that includes more than 50 events: installations, performances, film screenings. One of the most popular was a work by London-based German artist Melanie Manchaux titled "Dancing" ("All Night London"). The artist made it in collaboration with ten different dance schools, which marched through the streets of the city in the rhythm of tango or Cuban rueda, and then gathered in the square in the Broadgate area, where they invited everyone to join the dance until the morning. The General Ticket (or Big Ticket) category includes events that cannot be classified as regular museum exhibitions. These include exhibitions, the ticket for which gives access to other attractions, as, for example, in the case of the Palace of Versailles; exhibitions located on the territory of other cultural sites, as in the case of the Beijing Palace Museum in the Forbidden City; exhibitions in the lobbies of museums like the Turbine Hall and the Oil Storages at the Tate Modern; exhibitions taking place at several venues simultaneously, including biennials and festivals. Despite the fact that the next Venice Biennale was held in 2017, it did not make it into the top 10 with a figure of 3709 visitors per day. However, it is worth noting that, unlike other biennials, including the Korean Busan, as well as such festivals as ArtPrize and Scape, the entrance to the Venice Biennale is paid.
David Hockney. "Pool with two figures". 1971. Exhibition at Tate Britain and the Pompidou Center. Photo: Art Gallery of New South Wales / Jenni Carter
| Average number of visitors per day | Total number of visitors | Exhibition | Area | City | Dates |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 35 968 | 71 937 | Night of the Arts* | Various venues | London | July 1 - July 2 |
| 27 512 | 522 737 | ArtPrize 2017* | Various venues | Grand Rapids | September 20 - October 8 |
| 23 153 | 231 527 | BMW Tate Live 2017. Ten days, six nights* | Tate Modern | London | March 24 - April 2 |
| 21 892 | 1 882 751 | History of Chinese calligraphy | Taipei | October 1 - December 25 | |
| 16 465 | 2 930 788 | Commissioned by Hyundai. Philippe Parreno* | Tate Modern | London | October 4, 2016 – April 2, 2017 |
| 15 116 | 650 000 | Scape: public art season - 2017. Time in space* | Scape | Christchurch | October 7 - November 18 |
| 12 818 | 384 526 | Busan Biennale. Festival "Sea of Art - 2017"* | Busan Biennale | Busan | September 16 - October 15 |
| 11 923 | 1 025 393 | Donated painting and calligraphy | National Museum of the Imperial Palace | Taipei | October 1 - December 25 |
| 11 868 | 985 056 | Masterpieces of painting and calligraphy | National Museum of the Imperial Palace | Taipei | October 4 - December 25 |
| 11 683 | 973 000 | Anselm Kiefer - Velimir Khlebnikov | State Hermitage | St. Petersburg | May 30 - September 3 |
| 10 669 | 358 188 | Silk Road. Contemporary painting of China | Palace Museum in the Forbidden City | Beijing | July 6 - August 13 |
| 10 165 | 935 224 | Bear Bravo at the National Museum of the Imperial Palace | National Museum of the Imperial Palace | Taipei | August 1 - October 31 |
| 10 133 | 851 206 | Chinese painting/Birds/Humor/Chickens | National Museum of the Imperial Palace | Taipei | January 1 - March 25 |
| 9 994 | 909 437 | Artwork Donated by the Fu Chuanfu Family | National Museum of the Imperial Palace | Taipei | January 25 - April 25 |
| 9 673 | 1 634 778 | Emperor Jiaqing of the Qing Dynasty and the art of his time | National Museum of the Imperial Palace | Taipei | January 1 - June 18 |
* An asterisk marks free admission to the exhibition and the museum.
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Popular materials
From Venetian art to artists of the thaw period, from Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin to Salvador Dali, here are 14 important exhibitions of the year to add to your calendar.
"Caprichos". Goya and Dali
Francisco Goya.«
caprichos»
. Series of 80 etchings. The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, 1799
The State Museum of Fine Arts continues to combine contemporary art with classical art: this time, not only the Japanese artist Yasumasa Morimura appeared in this perspective, but also the Spaniards Francisco Goya and Salvador Dali. A small exhibition in the main building presents etchings from the Caprichos series by both authors. However, if Goya's series is a satirical reflection on the crisis of contemporary Spain, then Dali cruelly sneers at Goya's existing plots, adding new characters to the compositions and changing the names of the etchings. The era of romanticism and postmodernism of the twentieth century collide in a dialogue, visual and literary.
Triennial of Contemporary Art
When: March 2017
On the anniversary of the October Revolution, the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art is launching a revolutionary program introducing Muscovites to contemporary artists from all over Russia, from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok. The first triennial will feature more than 60 artists selected by curators across the country. They also identified seven trends that have become common to all regions, as well as the main masters, whose influence goes far beyond the boundaries of their native city or region. The theme of the exhibition will be the spirit of the times and social trends that determine regional artistic processes. “Our idea is to show the current cross-section of Russian contemporary art and start interacting with the regions,” Garage director Anton Belov commented on the triennial.
"Thaw»
Vladimir Gavrilov. "Cafe. Autumn day", 1962
The arrival of spring is met in Moscow with the onset of the "Thaw" - at the exhibition in the Tretyakov Gallery, artists traditional for the turn of the 50s and 60s will be shown - Pimenov, Gavrilov, Salakhov, Popkov. The exposition presents several thematic sections - from "The Best City on Earth" to "Atom - Space" - and tells not only about the achievements of the Khrushchev era, but also about the conflicts of this historical period. “It was the most important era not just of art, but of the human worldview and its embodiment in all possible artistic forms,” Zelfira Tregulova, director of the Tretyakov Gallery, talks about the thaw era.
“Facing the future. Art of Europe 1945–1968»
Where: Pushkin Museum im. A. S. Pushkin; st. Volkhonka, 12
Yves Klein."Blue Globe (RP 7)”, 1988. Copy from the original in 1957, made after the death of the artist
The thaw will come not only to the Tretyakov Gallery, but also to the whole of Moscow - the Pushkin Museum, Gorky Park and the Museum of Moscow, where, in addition to exhibitions, lectures, master classes and discussions will be held. And if the Tretyakov Gallery will show Russian art of the Khrushchev era, then the Pushkin Gallery will show European post-war artists who fought for peace after the overthrow of totalitarian dictatorships and invented new utopias. Two hundred masters from Western and Eastern Europe are presented at the exhibition in a variety of art forms, from paintings and photographs to media art and actionism.
Ugo Rondinone "Your age and my age and the age of the rainbow"
Where: Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, st. Krymsky Val, 9, building 32
One of the most hype contemporary artists of recent years, successfully conquering fairs and biennials, the Swiss Ugo Rondinone will present a special exhibition at the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art as part of the Garage Square Commissions. Hugo specially recorded a video message to the children, in which he asked them to draw a rainbow - a symbol of love, fearlessness and the joy of life. Children from 4 to 10 years old, participants of Garage educational programs and children from orphanages, will become full co-authors of Rondinone - their works will be shown on the wall along the museum.
Saint Louis and the relics of the Sainte-Chapelle»
Where: Moscow Kremlin Museums, One-Pillar Chamber of the Patriarchal Palace
"The Baptism of Christ". stained glass from Sainte Chapelle, Paris, circa 1270-1280
Fans of medieval art can rejoice: in spring, the Kremlin will show monuments from the era of the French king Louis Saint - stained glass windows and relics of the Sainte-Chapelle chapel, as well as works from the Louvre collection, the Cluny Museum of Medieval Art, the National Library and the National Archives. Many works are truly unique and leave France for the first time, among them are Limoges enamels and high Gothic jewelry, as well as the reliquary of the Crown of Thorns from the early 19th century, which will become one of the main exhibits. The exhibition is accompanied by a large-scale educational program, more about which can be found on the website dedicated to the exhibition.
"De Chirico. Nostalgia for infinity»
Where: State Tretyakov Gallery, st. Krymsky Val, 10
Giorgio de Chirico. "Song of Love", 1914
The Tretyakov Gallery continues to acquaint the Moscow audience with the work of Italian masters. Not as large as at the Vatican, but no less spectacular, the Giorgio de Chirico exhibition, prepared together with the Giorgio and Isa de Chirico Foundation, will open here. Such a retrospective is taking place for the first time, before that the paintings of the Italian metaphysician were exhibited in 1929, and the etchings - in the 1930s.
Giorgio Morandi
Where: Pushkin Museum im. A. S. Pushkin, st. Volkhonka, 14
Giorgio Morandi. Still life, 1948
If the Tretyakov Gallery shows the surrealistic de Chirico, then the Pushkin Museum will present an anthology of the work of another master of the first half of the 20th century - Giorgio Morandi. More than 40 years after the Morandi exhibition in 1973, the museum will present a retrospective that includes all stages of the master's work from early metaphysics and avant-garde works to the classic Morandi still lifes, thanks to which he received recognition. In addition, the exhibition presents the artist's graphics, including etchings and engraving boards.
"Anselm Kiefer - Velimir Khlebnikov"
Where: State Hermitage
Anselm Kiefer. "Osiris and Isis", 1985
Anselm Kiefer's first solo exhibition will open at the Hermitage at the end of spring. However, it will not be just a retrospective, but a dedication of the German artist to the Russian poet Velimir Khlebnikov. Both are united by the theme of war: in Khlebnikov it is expressed in a cycle that occurs on water and land once every 317 years, while in Kiefer it is expressed in reflections on the theme of Nazism and the Holocaust. “I think in pictures. Poems help me with this. They are like beacons. I swim towards them, from one to the other. I was lost without them,” Kiefer says of poetry.
Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto. The Golden Age of Venetian Painting"
Where: Pushkin Museum im. A. S. Pushkin, st. Volkhonka, 12
When: June - end of August
Paolo Veronese. Apollo and Marsyas, second half of the 16th century
Although it is difficult to surprise a sophisticated viewer with Venetian art, it is impossible not to captivate them. Reaching its heyday in the 16th century in the works of Titian, Veronese and Tintoretto, the Venetian school is considered one of the pinnacles of the development of Italian painting in the entire history of art. It is these artists who will be presented at the exhibition, where you can see about 40 paintings.
« Someone 1917»
Where: State Tretyakov Gallery, st. Krymsky Val, 10
Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin. "In Petrograd", 1918
Although the centenary of the revolution will not be the main leitmotif of this year's exhibitions, the curators of the State Tretyakov Gallery will still pay considerable attention to it. The exhibition is dedicated primarily to the artists who experienced the revolution, and presents two sections - figurative peacemakers and non-objective utopians. Nesterov, Kandinsky, Serebryakova, Petrov-Vodkin, Klyun, Malevich - all of them can be seen at the exhibition "Someone 1917".
Takashi Murakami
Where: Garage Museum of Contemporary Art
Takashi Murakami,Kaikai. 2000-2005
A lover of bright colors and recognizable labels, Takashi Murakami, will be exhibited in Moscow for the first time - Garage is preparing a large exposition, which will also include graphics and animation and works by Japanese masters from the collections of the Pushkin Museum im. A. S. Pushkin and the State Museum of Oriental Art. Five sections of the exhibition will be devoted to the master's work since the 90s and will touch upon various phenomena of Japanese culture, embodied in the work of Murakami. The artist is called the Japanese Andy Warhol, he can also be compared with Yayoi Kusama - both artists have their own, very specific style and collaborate with fashion brands.
Drawings by Klimt and Schiele from the collection of the Albertina Museum, Vienna
Where: Pushkin Museum im. A. S. Pushkin, st. Volkhonka, 12
Egon Schiele. Youth in purple cassock with folded hands, 1914
Although Italian exhibitions make up the majority of this year's program, in fact it is under the banner of cultural cooperation between Austria and Russia. At the end of the year, the Pushkin Museum will open an exhibition of two of the most famous artists of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries - Klimt and his follower, no less famous Schiele. The main emphasis is on graphics - both masters are not only good painters, but also excellent draftsmen, and the collection of the Vienna Albertina is one of the best graphic collections in the world.
"Salvador Dali. Surrealist and classic"
Where: Faberge Museum in St. Petersburg, Embankment of the Fontanka River, 21
Salvador Dali. "Atomic Leda", 1949.
The first large-scale exhibition “Salvador Dali. Surrealist and Classic” will open at the Faberge Museum on April 1 and will run until July 2. The exposition will present works from the Spanish fund "Gala - Salvador Dali", private and museum collections. In total, the exhibition will feature more than 150 graphic and pictorial works of the artist. Tickets for Salvador Dali. Surrealist and Classic” are already on sale.
On April 17, the exhibition "Ming Dynasty: The Radiance of Scholarship" will open. The exposition will unfold in the halls of the Patriarchal Palace and the Assumption Belfry. It will be devoted to one of the brightest pages in the history of China - the culture of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). Passion for art, literature, music, deep knowledge of philosophical and historical treatises became a real cult at that time. This is what in medieval China was invested in the concept of "scholarship".
“The exhibition continues the tradition of cooperation between the Moscow Kremlin Museums and the Shanghai Museum, which began in 2012 with the showing of the Faberge collection in Shanghai. In 2015, we presented the Armory Treasury of Russian Autocrats project, which was visited by 642,948 people in three months - this is a huge figure even for China. In April, a return exhibition dedicated to the culture of the Ming Dynasty, the most important period in the history of the Celestial Empire, will open in Moscow. All the things that the guests of the museum will see will be shown in Russia for the first time and will allow them to get acquainted with the most diverse areas of art, feel the charm of the times,” said Elena Gagarina, Director General of the Moscow Kremlin Museums.
One of the main exhibits will be a magnificent procession - a set of 66 porcelain figures of an honorary escort: scientists, soldiers, musicians - horse and foot, young and old, dressed according to their rank and social status. The group was found in the burial of representatives of the imperial family, but its exact affiliation is unknown. The fact that such an escort was placed in a tomb meant that even after death a person would occupy high positions, enjoy the same benefits as during life. The richly decorated set is well preserved and executed with amazing attention to detail.
The exhibition highlights that the intellectuals of medieval China were keen connoisseurs of works of art. It will show objects made of jade, bronze, carved varnishes and cloisonné enamels. They served not only as interior or clothing decorations, but were also collectibles.
Visitors will see unique furniture from the Ming Dynasty with characteristic lines and noble wood carvings: part of the exhibition space will recreate the interior of an intellectual's office.
The visiting card of the Ming Dynasty is porcelain, which experts rightly consider to be the pinnacle in the production of "white gold" and are highly valued. It was at this time that masters developed colored glazes and created the technology of overglaze painting. Guests of the exhibition will be able to admire the exquisite products made by ceramists of this period.
In connection with the repair and restoration work, the entrance of visitors to the territory of the Kremlin is carried out through the Trinity Gates, the exit - through the Borovitsky Gates. Passage of visitors to the Armory and exit is through the Borovitsky Gate.
From 15:00 January 7 to 15:00 January 8
Assumption Cathedral is closed to the public.
From October 1st to May 14th
The Moscow Kremlin Museums are switching to winter mode. The architectural ensemble is open to the public from 10:00 to 17:00, the Armory is open from 10:00 to 18:00. Tickets are sold at the box office from 9:30 to 16:30. Day off - Thursday. The exchange of electronic tickets is made in accordance with the terms of the User Agreement.
From October 1st to May 14th
the exposition of the bell tower "Ivan the Great" is closed to the public.
In order to ensure the preservation of monuments under adverse weather conditions, access to some museum-cathedrals may be temporarily limited.
We apologize for any inconvenience caused.