50+1 Stories from the Kostakis Collection

Exhibition “50+1 Stories from the Kostakis Collection”

MOMus-Museum of Modern Art-Kostakis Collection

(Lazariston Monastery, Thessaloniki)

08 June – 12 November 2023

Opening: Thursday 08 June 2023, 19:00

What could link Rosa Luxemburg, Jackson Pollock, Vasily Kandinsky, Lev Trotsky, Oscar Wilde and Yoko Ono with visual artists in early 20th century Russia, such as Kazimir Malevich, Lyubov Popova, Solomon Nikitin and Vladimir Tatlin? How did an art exhibition held 100 years ago cause a heated skirmish between the artists who participated in it, and how was a rare edition printed on wallpaper? How did a work of art end up going through… an x-ray in a public hospital?

The answers to these and even more questions can be found in the 50 plus 1 stories developed in the exhibition of the same name, from 08 June to 12 November 2023 at the MOMus Museum of Modern Art, at Moni Lazariston, in Thessaloniki (opening: Thursday 08 June 2023, 19:00).

More than 100 works and archival material from the Museum’s Kostakis Collection form the basis for the narratives and journeys proposed to visitors, while at the same time functioning in parallel and complementing the stories that accompany them.

Almost all the artists of the famous collection are represented in the exhibition, as well as all the trends and groups of the Russian avant-garde of the early 20th century, in an equal and complementary coexistence of works and texts, through a more anecdotal narrative, along with the original narratives of the collector George Kostakis, which act as a link.

On the two floors of the Lazariston Monastery, an entire era unfolds: artistic pursuits, travels, personal stories with explosive confrontations and deep friendships, inexhaustible creativity and inventive experimentation, social, artistic, philosophical, scientific and literary turmoil. Along the way, stories tell of the founding of art schools, studies of the radical renovation of buildings and the construction of monuments that never happened; describe work uniforms that would change the lives of those who wore them; recount episodes of harsh censorship often with tragic ends for the creators; follow inner quests and journeys of the mind with difficult endings, and much more.

All of the above are not isolated stories of this era that has gone down in the history of art as the Russian Vanguard, an era that was never a one-dimensional or unified movement and that was rescued – literally and not at all metaphorically – from oblivion by George Kostakis. On the contrary, the exhibition reveals aspects of this period unknown to the general public, seeking to become a landmark in the management, study, approach and promotion of the Kostakis collection of the MOMus Museum of Modern Art.

The dates of the guided tours and parallel activities will be announced.

Exhibition curator

Angeliki Haristou, art historian, head of the Kostakis Collection and Archive of the MOMus Museum of Modern Art – Kostakis Collection

Scientific cooperation

Maria Tsantsanoglou, art historian, director of the MOMus Museum of Modern Art-Kostakis Collection

Artists

Natalia Goncharova, Elena Guro, Boris Ender, Alexandra Exter, Ivan Kliun, Gustav Kluczys, Ivan Kudriasov, Alexei Kruczonich, Mikhail Larionov, Aristarkh Lentulov, El Lissitsky, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Kazimir Malevich, Mikhail Matyushin, Alexei Morgunov, Vassily Bobrov, Varvara Bubnova, Solomon Nikritin, Aleksandr Drevin, Nadezhda Udalchova, Lyubov Popova, Clement Redko, Olga Rozanova, Aleksandr Rochenko, Vsevolod Sulimo-Samuillo, Vladimir Tatlin, Vassily Chekrigin, Pavel Filonov