Yoko Ono, Dmitry Brusnikin and the Kandinsky Prize. Chief October exhibitions

The Moscow Museum of Modern Art in Petrovka is to run a Yoko Ono's retrospective. Yermolayevsky Pereulok will host a big exhibition in memoriam of Dmitry Brusnikin. The Biology Museum is to deal with Charles Darwin's misconceptions, with the Museum of Cosmonautics explaining how to fly to Mars and come back alive.

'Alexander Avalov. Portrait of a Woman' in the State Darwin Museum

Address: 57 Vavilova Street

Dates: 1 October — 1 December

Alexander Avalov is renowned as an animal photographer. Over the years, working at the Moscow Zoo, he has created many portraits of animals featuring a yawning Jaguar, a merry brown bear and a sad panda.

Avalov's landscapes, still life and female portraits are less known, but not less interesting. He dresses his models in clothes of the 19th and 20th centuries, making modern girls look like black-and-white film stars and socialites of the past.

The Darwin Museum, which has repeatedly held solo exhibitions of Avalov, is running a 30-years retrospective of the photographer on the first day of October. The exhibition features portraits of women, delicate floral arrangements and unexpected landscapes. You will also see 'beastly' but so humane portraits, as the exhibition will be complemented by a slide show of pictures taken by Avalov in different years at the Zoo.

Ticket — from RUB 150

'Beyond the Sound. Stephen J Shanabrook'. Zvezda Cinema

Address: 18/22 bldg. 2 Zemlyanoi Val Street 

Dates: 1– 28 October

Solyanka State Gallery, jointly with Moskino, presents an exhibition by Stephen J Shanabrook, one of the most famous contemporary artists in the United States. It opens at the Zvezda Cinema.

In the 1990s, Shanabrook shocked art critics representing his ‘Chocolate Box: Morgue’ series, which included chocolate casts of dead human body parts. His works are exhibited by museums in the USA, Russia, Europe and Australia, they can also be found in private collections. The artist Damien Hirst is one of his most renowned admirers.

Shanabrook is also known as a video artist and performer, with his art featuring pain, fear and sickness of modern society. Zvezda Cinema's lobby will run videos of two artist's performances and video art created over the past 10 years. The camera fixed on a car wheel captures the crazy rhythm of life in a megacity, cotton candy covering the artist's body slowly melts and turns into a dirty crust, and execution of a crowd from a paintball gun exposes the current USA's issue, free possession, carriage and use of firearms.

Admission is free.

'Flying away? Fly away!' at Nagornaya Gallery

Address: 10 Remizova Street

Dates: 9 October — 24 November

20 Moscow artists working in different genres participate in the flight-themed exhibition project. For some, flight is a physical movement on an aircraft, for others it is meditation and uplift, or a free fall.

The exhibition includes installations, graphic art, videos and paintings by Semyon Agroskin, Tatiana Krol, Vladimir Mogilevsky, Dasha Fursei, Yuri Tatyanin and others.

Ticket — RUB 100

Kandinsky Prize nominees at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art

Address: 25 Petrovka Street

Dates: 9 October — 17 November

A month before the 12th ceremony of awards of the Kandinsky Prize, the Museum of Modern Art opens an exhibition of artists and artistic associations applying for it this year. The exhibition will feature 30 works by young artists and winners of previous awards. Among them are Alexander Brodsky, Polina Kanis, Sasha Pirogova, MishMash and Gorod Ustinov art groups,  Khaim Sokol and many others.

Ticket — RUB 350.

'Yoko Ono. The Sky Is Always Clear' at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art

Address: 25 Petrovka Street

Dates: 15 October — 24 November

The exhibition, one of the most anticipated ones this year, will open during the Territoriya festival and school of contemporary art . Avant-garde artist, singer and  writer Yoko Ono will present in Moscow her solo exhibition. It will be centered around the 'Instructions' project, which started yet in the 1960s.

Items and pictures featured in the 'Instructions' do not exist on their own, they require the viewer's intervention. Anyone who decides on a dialogue with the Ono's art, will seriously test their memory, imagination and trust. For example, you will play chess on a completely white board, finish the work started by the artist or highlight on the map a place where the world is coming to.

In addition, the display presents reconstructions of some of Yoko Ono's classical performances and her video art.

Ticket — RUB 350.

'The Art of Russian Embroidery of the 16th — early 20th Century' in Kolomenskoye Museum Reserve

Address: 39/69 Andropova Prospekt

Dates: 17 October — 23 February

 

Kolomenskoye Museum Reserve is to run an exhibition of embroideries from its holdings, including both items of medieval Church decoration, and clothing and accessories of the 20th century. Many of them will be exhibited for the first time.

The exhibition has four sections. The first one presents ornamental and pictorial embroidery, the second one features beadwork, pearl embroidery and spangle work, with the third and the fourth section showing counted thread and white embroidery.

Ticket — RUB 200.

'Earth  — Moon  — Mars... Survive' at the The Museum of Cosmonautics

Address: 111 Prospekt Mira

Dates: 17 October — 15 March

The new exhibition of the Museum of Cosmonautics will help to gain an insight into a cosmonaut's sensations on the way to Mars or the Moon. Prolonged isolation, confined space, and zero gravity a cosmonaut encounters during the flight are exhausting and unpleasant sensations. To tolerate them well, astronauts train a lot on the Earth in close to space conditions. Learn about their training with the help of VR-simulator, which will 'land' you next to the Shackleton and Gusev crators on the Moon and Mars.

The exhibition is organized jointly with the Institute of Biomedical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Part of the stands is dedicated to its history and contribution to the development of the Russian cosmonautics.

Ticket — RUB 250.

'The Man As Big As the House' Dmitry Brusnikin's Memorial Exhibition at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art

Address: 17 Yermolaevsky Pereulok

Dates: 22 October — 17 November

The exhibition project to commemorate the actor, director and teacher Dmitry Brusnikin will be another key event of the Territoriya festival and school of contemporary art. Artist Ksenia Peretrukhina, exhibition's curator, has brought together biography facts, lifetime projects and creative plans of the director. Fans of Dmitry Brusnikin's talent will enjoy files from the personal archives of his widow Marina Brusnikina.

Admission is free.

'What Was Darwin Wrong About?' in Timiryazev Biological Museum

Address: 15 Malaya Gruzinskaya Street

Dates: 22 October — 15 April

Almost two centuries ago, when the world was still unaware of genetic heredity and the exact age of planet Earth, Charles Darwin offered his vision of the evolution mechanism. The first edition of his book 'The Origin of Species...' was sold out within one day. Darwin's theory was later revised and supplemented, but thousands of discoveries only confirmed that he was right.

The exhibition at the Biological Museum, dedicated to the 210th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birthday and the 160th anniversary of his basic work's publication, tells about the society prejudices in relation to the theory of evolution and the real misconceptions of Darwin and his colleagues. The exhibition will feature the rarest editions of 'The Origin of Species...' dating back to 1864 and 1865.

Ticket — RUB 280.

'Cloth Ironing Appliance, or the History of Iron' in Izmailovo Museum Reserve

Address: 2/4 Bauman's Town

Dates: 29 October — 31 March

Starting from the last days of October, come to view some 200 antique irons in Izmailovo. The exhibits show how this device has been evolving from coal to electric one. Visitors will learn who invented the iron, how the ancient Greeks ironed their clothes and when the 'cloth ironing appliance’ appeared in Russia.

Ticket — RUB 120.