Documents of Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts Projects

The mediatheque of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts collects and preserves materials on the history of Russian art from the mid‑20th to the early 21st century. It includes archives and documents on the history of art, photographs, audiovisual collections and newspaper cuttings, and archives of artists, curators, and institutions (including art galleries). An important part of the collection is the material on exhibitions, festivals, and other events related to contemporary art organized by the Pushkin Museum.

In 2016 the Department of Cinema and Media Art was created within the museum to focus on new media art and the development of a new visual language. One of the department’s main aims is to create a dialogue between classical and contemporary art, demonstrating parallels and the continuation of tradition in the work of contemporary masters. An important aspect of the department’s work is the formation of a collection of media art and its promotion through exhibitions and public programs in the museum’s spaces in various Russian cities.

The archive contains materials from the first exhibitions by the department, House of Impressions. Classic and Contemporary in Media Art and House of Impressions. A Stroll with a Troubadour, which were designed to introduce Pushkin Museum visitors to new media art. The exhibition‑interventions Irina Nakhova: A Look and Fabrizio Plessi: The Soul of Stone continued the work with formats new to the audience and created a dialogue between contemporary art and the traditional museum display (in both the painting galleries and the cast galleries), revealing the transhistorical approach used in the department’s projects. Man as Bird. Images of Journeys was shown in a Venetian palazzo and selected for the parallel program of the 57th Venice Biennale.

The archive also includes materials about other exhibitions by the Department of Cinema and Media Art, At the End is the Beginning: The Secret Brotherhood of Tintoretto and Bill Viola. The Journey of the Soul. The retrospective by the legend of media art was the first exhibition of this genre to be shown in the central space of the museum Subsequent projects by the department, including Experiences of Dialogue and False Awakening, which are also represented in the archive, focus on work with the museum’s collection of media art, creating dialogue between such works and those of contemporary artists from the local scene.