This fantastic contemporary art museum has made this far-flung and otherwise totally dead area of Vasilyevsky Island a destination in itself. The museum divides neatly into two parts, spread over five floors. On the left-hand side is the permanent collection of some 2000 works of Russian art produced between the 1950s and the present day, while on the right-hand side the same number of floors house temporary exhibits and commercial galleries, where the work on display is also on sale.
The permanent collection is an excellent survey of the past half-century of Russian art, and is particularly strong on late Soviet underground art. One nice curatorial touch is the frequent inclusion of objects depicted in paintings in real life – a bowl of apples will sit, for example, in front of a painting entitled Apple Picking. It’s all terribly sleek, beautifully presented and the best place in St Petersburg to get a feel for contemporary Russian art.
