Exhibition "Valery Koshlyakov. "DOMUS MAXIMA"

State Museum of Architecture named after A.V. Shchuseva presents a new project of the famous classic of Russian contemporary art Valery Koshlyakov.

The artist prepared the DOMUS MAXIMA project specifically for the Museum of Architecture in Moscow, for the space of his historic estate in the city center. The term Domus in this project takes on a different meaning: "our common home, our being." The exhibition will feature more than 60 picturesque panels, objects, and video material. A catalog edition is being prepared for release.

Architecture has always been the main theme of Valery Koshlyakov’s work. No other art is present on such a large scale in human life, and therefore architecture is a powerful means of influencing it. Koshlyakov considers architecture as a search for an ideal among a huge variety of ideas. Ideas, both initially utopian, and realized, and turned into purely artistic images. The architectural projects that inspired the master, their author’s comprehension and interconnections, are embodied in large picturesque panels and fragments of antique furniture thrown away by people interacting with them, which the artist turns into exhibition objects.

The exposition space of the State Museum of Architecture in an enfilade of a residential estate of the 18th-19th centuries is fundamentally different from modern galleries with white walls and sets a new task for Valery Koshlyakov: creating an exhibition based on a dialogue between history and current life.

The building boom, which began in the middle of the 19th century and continued throughout the 20th century, gave architecture new, simpler, more versatile forms and determined the interest of mankind in the preservation of memory. Modern reality offers society a constant choice between the new and the old. The development of civilization is an endless search for a balance between preservation and new construction, new life. Thus, the exhibition reflects the connection between the historic building, the art that has settled in it, and the life that takes place outside the museum.

The artist paints pictures for discarded furniture he found on the streets of Paris. The pieces of furniture in the concept of Valery Koshlyakov become “buildings”, and just as the perception of old buildings changes depending on how the environment around them changes, so our perception of furniture changes depending on what kind of interior we place them in. Koshlyakov’s painting enters into a dialogue with objects thrown out of their native context, thereby making them architectonic. They are reminiscent of architectural monuments that exist in the space of constantly updated cities.

The viewer is invited to walk through eight halls of the museum suite, each of which is dedicated to a specific topic: the cultural symbols of Europe and the portals of cathedrals and churches as eternal sources of inspiration, architectural utopias and fantasies, interiors, Russian architecture and, finally, modernism and contemporary postmodernism. The artist asks the question: why does a person need architecture, and in what kind of architecture does he want to exist.

“Valery Koshlyakov’s exhibition at the State Museum of Architecture is an important project that has been in preparation for quite some time. Valery Koshlyakov is one of the main contemporary Russian artists. The topics that will be covered at the exhibition are the correlation of classics and modernity, modernity as classics. The main building of the Talyzin estate, where the exhibition will be presented, is the best way for the artist to think about the place classical culture and architecture occupy in modern life. This is what Valery Koshlyakov made his project about, and we hope that it will be of interest to everyone, ”says Elizaveta Likhacheva, director of the State Museum of Architecture. A. V. Shchuseva

“I am especially pleased to support the new project of Valery Koshlyakov, with whom I have many years of communication and friendship. I am close to the main idea of the exhibition, which reflects the relationship between art and architecture, which, in my opinion, is important and promising today. And I hope that the cooperation we have begun will be productive,” says Marina Rudneva, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Vos’hod development company.

Curators: Elizaveta Likhacheva, Olga Golovanova-Koshlyakova

General partner of the exhibition: VOS’HOD company

Valery Koshlyakov - one of the most authoritative and interesting figures in contemporary Russian art, who has received international recognition. Born in 1962 in the city of Salsk, Rostov Region, studied at the Rostov Art College. M. B. Grekova. In 1988, he joined the Art or Death avant-garde association, which brought together young Russian artists and musicians. Lives and works in Paris. The artist represented Russia at the most important art events - at the 50th Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art (2003) and the Sao Paulo Biennale (2004). His works were exhibited in the largest museums in Russia, Europe and America: the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Museum of Fine Arts. A. S. Pushkin, the State Russian Museum, the Museum of Russian Impressionism, the Louvre Museum, the Pompidou Center,