The Museum of Russian Art in Spain was saved from closing • Radio.Svoboda • RIMA

The Museum of Russian Art in Spain was saved from closing

Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, whose work is now exhibited in the museum

In the Museum of Russian Art in the Spanish city of Malag, a private collection of British enthusiast Jenny Green was put up. This saved the museum from closing after Russian invasion of Ukraine. It is reported by The Guardian.

Green for five months handed the museum 76 works by artists from the USSR and the Russian Empire - Ivan Aivazovsky, Valentin Serov, Natalia Goncharova and ten more painters. Pictures are exhibited for the first time.

Since December, the museum has also been an installation “for sale” by artists of Ilya and Emilia Kabakov - natives of Ukraine living in the United States since 1988.

The Museum of Russian Art in Malaga, opened in 2015, became the first branch of the St. Petersburg Russian Museum in Europe. By the time of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, four exhibitions were opened in the museum, including “War and Peace in Russian Art”, and expositions dedicated to Dostoevsky and Mayakovsky.

The museum hoped that he would be able to preserve them, but in early May, work had to be returned to Russia.

The director of the museum Jose Maria Luna Agylar explained that now their relationship with the Russian Museum has been interrupted, and the future of the Spanish Museum - for private and state collections of Russian art.

"Russian culture is not responsible for what is happening. Its cancellation does not solve anything. Malevich and Tchaikovsky are not to blame for the current situation. We will continue to work with culture as with a bridge between people," Luna Agilar emphasized.

She also noted that their contract with the Russian Museum is valid until 2025 - “So you have to wait and see what will happen.” Before the war, the Spanish Museum managed to carry out 40 exhibitions from the collection of the Russian Museum, which watched at least 750 thousand people.

Representatives of the Russian authorities, after an invasion of Ukraine, accuse the Western countries of “canceling” Russian culture, while ignoring numerous cases refuting this thesis.