Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center presents the exhibition ‘Where Cars and Buses feel at Home. Bakhmetevsky and other Garages’ that sheds a new light onto the 1920-1930’s depicting these times through the history of a Moscow garage. The famous Le Corbusier’s formula — ‘A house is a machine for living’ — describes these dynamic times only up to a certain point.
A car was born with the modern art and a garage, house for machines, became one of the symbols of the modernist architecture inspired by the industrial aesthetics.
Moscow garage is traditionally associated with Konstantin Melnikov and his works. But the reality is, that there were many other garages and architects who built them. Visitors of the exhibition will discover a new world where art and technology, love and politics are woven together.
The display at The Jewish Museum, located in the former building complex of the Bakhmetyev bus garage constructed in the late 1920-s, will be divided into three themed sections not only reconstructing the image of the period but also allowing to dive deep into these first decades of the Soviet motorization and to enjoy the beauty of the early garage architecture.
Each section is centered around a key figure — a historical character who helps visitors to dive into the subject: Lilia Brik at the wheel of a Renault given by Vladimir Mayakovsky; Viktor Shklovsky who learned how to drive during the World War I and from time to time published satirical articles in the Za Rulem (At the Wheel) magazine; and finally, Lev Davidovitch, engineer behind almost all of the Moscow garages of the 1930-s.
The display will include garage design drawings of 1900-1930-s from Moscow and national archives, cars of the period, private documents from the archives of Vladimir Mayakovsky, Viktor Shklovsky, Konstantin Melnikov, Mikhail Minkus and others, as well as paintings, drawings and photos from various museum collections: Russian State Museum, Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Shusev State Museum of Architecture, Mayakovsky Museum, Museum of Moscow, Multimedia Art Museum, Polytechnic Museum and private collections, Russian State Library and other collections.
The exhibition will be accompanied by the public program with lectures, workshops, screenings and discussions.
Curated by Liya Chechik and Olga Shurygina
Photo by Aleksander Rodchenko from the Lilia Brik’s Voyage That Did Not Happen series, 1929
Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow
The project is realized with the kind support of Mikhail Gutseriev, businessman and founder of the SAFMAR Charitable Foundation.