the museum of russian art

yesterday i had the opportunity to go visit the museum of russian art with my friends glyph and kenny! i wanted to go with something easy to wear, so i put together a coordinate with my shirring princess and comfy sweater.

coord rundown
jsk - tartan check shirring princess (2009), baby, the stars shine bright
sweater - vintage
beret - offbrand
brooch - baby, the stars shine bright
socks - offbrand
boots - antaina
bag - baby, the starts shine bright

when we went, the museum had four distinct exhibits open - the first one, a temporary show, featured a ton of soviet-era posters. many of them were careful reproductions of older prints, but some of them were actual preserved pieces from the time period. as you might expect from an exhibition featuring art from the soviet union, there was a lot of red, and i ended up matching most of this exhibit.

i carefully steamed and de-wrinkled my bustle before i left... but the car ride wrinkled it back up again lmao x_x

here's a selection of some of the ones that interested me the most! there were tons more than this, and it was very interesting to see the way the art of these prints changed over time alongside the landscape it was made in. the last poster, an anti-smoking ad, stood out as unusually apolitical and a bit darkly comical.
 

i stared for a while at this one and my partner snuck a candid. everyone really loved the cows.

 

the next exhibit also featured soviet-era art, but instead of overtly political prints and posters, the focus was depictions of cats and dogs and their role in day-to-day life. i really enjoyed this exhibit, especially this beautiful cows painting. (just titled 'cows,' though there is a dog to the side, which is why they included it.)

 

cows!

there were three different paintings of this man and his dogs -- it makes one wonder what kind of person he was.

how did they get him to sit still for this!???

this one reminds me of me and my own little gray cat.

after seeing the two temporary exhibits, we headed down to the bottom floor to view the museum's permanent collection. these pieces were not united by a single theme, and so there was a huge variety to look at. there was also a little photo spot, encouraging visitors to sit down and say hello to the cat that lives in the little house. i asked my partner to take a photo for me, and they did (thank you!) but declined to have the favor returned because they were kind of unnerved by the masked figures hahaha 

 

 

in addition to the photo op, the actual collection was a lot of fun to look at!

 

this painting is huge in real life, and it really makes you feel like you're looking into another world.

there's a big collection of anti-war political cartoons on display, made both by russian and ukrainian artists. the museum's been very vocal about its anti-war stance.

a cute children's book!

this painting made me laugh because it looks just like one of my old college roommates, red bandana and amazing sculpture skills and all.

there was a fourth exhibition -- it was a traveling show of violins of hope. i don't have any pictures because this is a very silly blog, and i wanted to be respectful of what the exhibition represents. it was a very beautiful and somber collection with a lot of history behind it, and you can read more about it here.

 

 

 

the museum was super super fun! i'd been meaning to go for a while, but had never gotten around to it, so i'm glad our friends invited us! 

while we were there, we checked out the gift shop. because if theres a gift shop you GOTTA. they had a lot of typical art museum fare there - prints, magnets, and post cards - but they also had some vintage dishes and pins from the soviet union, which was crazy to see. they also had a whole shelf of little treats! i got two chocolate-orange candies that were sooo good  the person working the shop told me that these candies have been beloved for decades, which i 100% believe because mmmmmm. a cursory internet search says they're called lastochka.

 

 we stayed until closing time, after which we went our separate ways. my partner and i stopped at a local place for some dinner, and then went home after that. i was very happy to get out of my many many layers... i always forget how hard it is to wear this fashion in the summer lmao. worth it though.

 

there are always interesting things to do and see, you just have to look for them! though small, this museum holds so many amazing treasures - i'd love to go back sometime in the future to see what new collections they'll have.