Fallen Monument Park
Encyclopedia
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
shared by the modern art
Modern art
Modern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...
division of Tretyakov Gallery
Tretyakov Gallery
The State Tretyakov Gallery is an art gallery in Moscow, Russia, the foremost depository of Russian fine art in the world.The gallery's history starts in 1856 when the Moscow merchant Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov acquired works by Russian artists of his day with the aim of creating a collection,...
and Central House of Artists. It is located between the Park Kultury and the Oktyabrskaya underground stations.
The origins of this expatriate English name are unknown; in Russian, the park is either simply named Sculpture Park (Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
: Парк Искусств, Park Iskustv) of the Central House of Artists or referred to by its legal title, Muzeon Park of Arts.
Muzeon Park was established by the City of Moscow in 1992 and currently displays over 700 sculptures. It is split into themed sections, i.e. the Oriental Garden, Pushkin Square
Pushkin Square
Pushkinskaya Square or Pushkin Square in Moscow, historically known as Strastnaya Square and renamed for Alexander Pushkin in 1937, is located at the junction of the Boulevard Ring and Tverskaya Street, 2 km northwest of the Kremlin...
, Portrait Row, although the best known part — the fallen monuments themselves — appeared here before 1992. In October 1991, when the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
collapsed, smaller socialist realism
Socialist realism
Socialist realism is a style of realistic art which was developed in the Soviet Union and became a dominant style in other communist countries. Socialist realism is a teleologically-oriented style having its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism...
statues of Soviet leaders and unidentifiable workers and peasants were removed from their pedestals, hauled to the park and left in their fallen form. They were rectified later, although missing original pedestals. In 1990s these statues shaped the park outline, but as more and more modern sculpture was added and as the young trees grew up, they became a less obvious minority. Opening animation in the film GoldenEye
GoldenEye
GoldenEye is the seventeenth spy film in the James Bond series, and the first to star Pierce Brosnan as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. The film was directed by Martin Campbell and is the first film in the series not to take story elements from the works of novelist Ian Fleming...
and one of the levels in the Nintendo 64
Nintendo 64
The , often referred to as N64, was Nintendo′s third home video game console for the international market. Named for its 64-bit CPU, it was released in June 1996 in Japan, September 1996 in North America, March 1997 in Europe and Australia, September 1997 in France and December 1997 in Brazil...
game of the same name were based on images of the fallen monuments, although in both the game and film the park was located in Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
.
In 1995, Muzeon added a World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
section - these sculptures, of the same socialist realism vintage, were never displayed in open air before. In 1998 the park acquired 300 sculptures of victims of communist rule made by Evgeny Chubarov, installed as a single group. The park also holds temporary summer shows of modern artists.
The future of the Park is, most likely, doomed by Elena Baturina's decision to demolish the gallery building and erect a Norman Foster
Norman Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank
Norman Robert Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank, OM is a British architect whose company maintains an international design practice, Foster + Partners....
-designed Orange — a mixed-use project spanning the current territory of the park. While the architect plans to allot some of the Orange to the galleries, the project simply leaves no place for the park.
See also
- Statue Park, outside Budapest, Hungary
- Grūtas ParkGrutas ParkGrūtas Park is a sculpture garden of Soviet-era statues and an exposition of other Soviet ideological relics from the times of the Lithuanian SSR...
, in LithuaniaLithuaniaLithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
, known colloquially as "Stalin World"