Making our stay in the city visibly and invisibly

The premiere launch of the selected artworks from the Gazprombank collection explores the problem of knowledge generated out of an artistic experience. The viewer is invited to reflect on the possibility of knowledge other than materialistic, on art as a specific method of generating, reinterpreting and distributing "the other knowledge".

Artists work primarily with the environment of their own mythological systems as well as with the environment of a social system around them. The exhibition therefore focuses on the city, but not a city described and catalogued in tour guides, but a private, personal city with its hidden life and rituals, with its mysteries and genius loci. Magic of the city is something that artists come across much more frequently than the man in the street; not only because of their attention and curiosity but also because art has soaked, digested and reincarnated images and communicative messages of previous epochs.

The title of the exhibition crossreferences the so called "Rosicrucian Enlightenment" of 1623 when the walls of Paris were plastered with mysterious posters which said: "We, the Deputies of the Higher College of the Rose-Croix, do make our stay, visibly and invisibly, in this city (...)".

The "Invisible College" of the Rose-Croix was based on the idea of achieving knowledge through experimental research. It created a platform for the exchange of ideas between physicists, astronomers, mathematicians and natural philosophers. In the 20^th century the bearers and distributors of "a special knowledge" formed another communicative community: contemporary art, a new and also hermetic institution that explored social problems, made them visible and also posed questions about its own nature.

Exploring the way knowledge is born out of an artistic experience is, among other things, in line with the purpose of the collector who conducts educational and exhibitory activity, thus proving the importance of contemporary culture and the newest discourse, it generates.

Anatoly Osmolovsky. From the series "Hardware". 2006. Yuri Leiderman. "Turnip and whale". 2013.

Ivan Chuikov. "Views of Moscow. Panorama in the twilight ". 1993.  

Sergey Bratkov. From the series "My Moscow". 2003-2012.