Garage Museum of Contemporary Art presents the first large-scale exhibition of Rirkrit Tiravanija in Russia. Developed after spending time in Moscow while also expanding on his personal ongoing interests, Tiravanija has created a series of interconnected participatory projects that form a dialogue with the history of the Soviet Modernist building Garage inhabits, as well as with popular activities that the artist experienced and envisaged in the city, such as ping pong, producing self-styled t-shirts, and eating pelmeni (the quotidian Russian dumpling).
Adding another perspective to the exhibition, the artist has also paid homage to little-known Czechoslovakian conceptualist Július Koller, (1939-2007) who is both an inspiration and creative source for Tiravanija, particularly in his choice of the exhibition title: Tomorrow is the Question.
Occupying the Central Gallery and Skylight Gallery of the Museum, the exhibition both recalls and updates the original functions of the building as a social hub of the city, as well as highlighting the unique approach architect Rem Koolhaas took in envisaging a permanent home for Garage.
Covering the floor in a deep plush, purple carpet, Tiravanija will transform the space into a surreal place for leisurely passing time, filling it with custom-black ping pong tables that are flanked by two “stations” reminiscent of Soviet-style bus stop architecture. These will house the equipment for serving guests pelmeni throughout the run of the exhibition, as well as a t-shirt factory, where visitors can choose to have one of a number of slogans devised by the artist screen-printed onto a t-shirt that they can take away. Working in collaboration with the Moscow Ping Pong Club, Tiravanija has also opened up the exhibition as the location for a major, citywide ping pong tournament, which will run through the Summer, as well as welcoming visitors to play in casual games each day.
Rirkrit Tiravanija: Tomorrow is the Question
12 June – 23 August 2015
The Garage Museum
9/32 Krymsky Val st., 119049, Moscow, Russia
+7 (495) 645-05-20