The Moscow Museum of Modern Art is the state museum devoted exclusively to 20 th and 21 st century art.
The gallery aims to preserve the tradition of avant-garde art in Russia and its collection includes the greatest names in modern Russian art as well as new and up-and-coming artists and non-Russian contemporary artists.
The MMOMA opened in 1999 under founding director ZurabTsereteli, president of the Russian Academy of Arts. He donated in excess of 2,000 works by 20 th century Masters from his own private collection to begin the gallery's permanent display.
The main MMOMA building is in Petrovka Street in central Moscow, housed in an 18 th century mansion built in the neoclassical style by renowned architect MatveyKazakov for the Moscow merchant Gubin.
And there are also a further four exhibition spaces devoted to MMOMA in central Moscow - a large building of 5 storeys on Ermolaevsky Lane; a gallery in Tverskoy Boulevard; within the State Museum of Modern Art of the Russian Academy of Arts; and in the ZurabTsereteli Studio Museum.
The majority of the exhibits in the permanent collection are by home-grown artists and represent the main stages in the formation and development of the avant-garde art movement.
The gallery's policy has been to acquire Russian art that had been sold abroad to add the nation's cultural legacy and so its collection grows yearly.
Tstereli's collection includes some of the most famous artists of the last century, including The Sun Disk by Italian sculptor ArnandoPomodoro and sculptures by Armand.
Paintings by Chagall, Malevich, Larionov, Filonov, Kandinsky and Burliuk can be viewed along with sculptures by Archipenko and Zadkine. The gallery is also the proud owner of a unique collection of works by the famous Georgian artist NikoPirosmani whose paintings of ordinary people reflected the social conditions of the early 20 th century in which he lived.
While the MMOMA does focus on Russian art and artists, it also boasts a remarkable collection of art by such Western masters as Picasso, Miró, Dali, Rousseau and Gilot. The renowned Japanese conceptualist Yukinori Yanagi's CIS Ant Farm installation is also on display.
The gallery has devoted a large part of its permanent display to nonconformist art from the 1960s to the 1980s when artists struggled against the diktats of Soviet ideology to be creative without state control. On display are works by the likes of VitalyKomar, IlyaKabakov, Alexander Melamid, Anatoly Zverev, Vladimir Yakovlev, and Vladimir Nemukhin.
Contemporary artists have also found a home at the MMOMA with regular exhibitions and displays from new talent such as Alexander Vinogradov, Valery Koshlyakov, Boris Orlovand Vladimir Dubossarsky.
A major feature of the gallery is its artistic education programme with a School of Modern Art operating alongside the MMOMA.
Art lovers will find themselves spoiled for choice with the permanent exhibition and
constantly evolving and changing exhibits across all of the MMOMA sites. English language guided tours can be booked in advance so visitors get the most out of their visit.
The Moscow Museum of Modern Art is an extraordinary collection that will surely be high on any visitor's to-do list.
