Unexpected Intersections

The new AZ/ART Center for Contemporary Art has opened the exhibition "Unexpected Intersections," prepared in collaboration with the Nikolai Karetnikov Composer Foundation. The project curators are the founder of AZ Museum and AZ/ART Center Natalia Opaleva, executive director of the foundation Anton Karetnikov, and musicologist and concert program curator Sergei Terentyev.

The exhibition "Unexpected Intersections" offers a subjective look at possible points of convergence and the comparative commonality of creative methods, artistic means, imagery, language, and subjects in the works of Soviet unofficial artists and composers. The idea behind the project is to demonstrate a comprehensive panorama of intermedial intersections within the Second Avant-Garde.

Among the artists presented at the exhibition are Yuri Zlotnikov, Lev Kropivnitsky, Valentina Kropivnitskaya, Lidia Masterkova, Evgeny Mikhnov-Voitenko, Vladimir Nemukhin, Dmitry Plavinsky, Oleg Tselkov, Mikhail Chernyshov. The list of composers includes such names as Andrei Volkonsky, Sofia Gubaidulina, Nikolai Karetnikov, Galina Ustvolskaya, Sergei Slonimsky, Viktor Suslin, Boris Tishchenko, Alfred Schnittke, and other composers of the Sixties generation. Throughout the summer, a series of 10 concerts will be performed by musicians of the "Studio for New Music," accompanying temporary exhibitions that will change for each new concert.

Natalia Opaleva, Director General of AZ Museum and AZ/ART Center:
"Continuing the line of dialogue between eras, at AZ/ART Center we will show the most interesting works by contemporary artists, little known to the Moscow public, alongside works by Sixties artists from the AZ Museum collection that have already become part of the museum's 'golden fund.'"

The concert cycle expands the context of Soviet unofficial music: in addition to works by composers of the Sixties generation, music from the Old and New World of various periods and movements of the 20th century will be performed. The program was formed using the comparative method. This approach allows, through comparing visual and auditory works of Soviet unofficial art, to identify what is subjectively common and distinctive in the development of language and creative strategies of the authors, as well as to find the reasons for these similarities and differences at the intersection of art forms. Concert program curator — Sergei Terentyev.

The exhibition runs from June 20 to September 1, 2024.

Project creators:
Curators: Natalia Opaleva, Anton Karetnikov, Sergei Terentyev
Concert program: Sergei Terentyev
Texts: Sergei Terentyev

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