Tuesday, Friday to Sunday 12:00 – 20:00
Wednesday to Thursday 12:00 – 21:00
Closed Mondays
Ticket office closes 30 minutes
before Museum closing time
The AZ/ART Center for Contemporary Art presents an exhibition by one of Russia's leading contemporary artists, Olga Chernysheva, titled "At First Sight." The project reveals drawing as a method of artistic thinking and a way of observing the continuous metamorphoses of life.
The exhibition includes rare early works that have never been shown to the public before. Among them is the series "Signs" (1989) — an example of Chernysheva's automatic drawing. New works by the artist are also presented, such as the watercolor "Brush" (2025), which captures a moment from everyday life — characteristic of Olga's visual language — while simultaneously reflecting the relationship between art and life. The artist explores the "uneven boundaries" between the important and the secondary, between event and background, finding poetry in what usually escapes attention. "At First Sight" is also an exhibition about spontaneity, immediacy of perception, and the ability to "read" the world directly.
The project is based on Olga Chernysheva's new book "On Drawings," which brings together the artist's graphic works from various years. The book will be published by AZ Museum specially for the exhibition and will include texts by art historian Ekaterina Andreeva and Evgenia Kiseleva-Afflerbach, the project's curator.
The exhibition layout, like its title, is dual in nature. The first section of the project explores the concept of a page in a book. In this hall, visitors can discover Chernysheva's illustrations for Viktor Dragunsky's "Deniska's Stories" (V-A-C Press, 2023), as well as unpublished watercolors from the project "Metro for Children" (Secession, 2017). A separate display in the first hall is dedicated to the book "On Drawings," featuring works created by the artist specifically for the exhibition alongside pieces from earlier series. These are accompanied by the author's commentary. All the publications mentioned are available in the exhibition space for visitors to explore personally.
The two other halls of the exhibition, dedicated to the image of a leaf as a botanical element, offer a special "non-anthropocentric" perspective, where humans give way to nature. The halls present various states of nature in watercolors from the series "Laundry" (2024) and "A Guide for Robots to Study Humans" (2019), paintings "Sound in the Forest" (2024) and "Moscow River" (2025), the video installation "Blue Ovals" (2018), as well as graphic works from various years and photographs.
By metro
We recommend travelling to Mayakovskaya metro station. The walk to the AZ Museum will take around five minutes. After leaving the station, turn first to the right into the alley, then moving forward, at the first intersection, turn left to 2nd Tverskaya-Yamskaya street. Walk a few meters. AZ Museum will be on your right.
By car
There are paid parking spaces on either side of 2nd Tverskaya-Yamskaya street or in the nearest alleys. Parking is limited, and on weekends and public holidays, the parking lots may be full.