Artists in the Gulag

I visited the new Gulag History Museum in Moscow. Entering the small modest red brick building, tucked away in a side street in the North of Moscow, little prepares you for what lies within…

You enter a dark expanse. At first glance it feels just like an art gallery – a vast warehouse space with what seem like large paintings hanging in limbo, each one dramatically lit. On closer inspection these turn out to be doors – different colours, textures, battered by use, plastered with locks, bolts, caged peepholes and scrawled with numbers. Preserved and now transported thousands of miles to this location for exhibition, these gateways are what remain of Russia’s Gulag prison system. […]

Read full article by Margy Kinmonth: THINKING ABOUT ARTISTS IN GULAG HISTORY published in Russian Art + Culture on 14 February 2020.