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SCIENCE MUSEUM’S COSMONAUTS EXHIBITION SUPPORTED BY ART RUSSE OPENS IN LONDON TOMORROW

ART RUSSE, founded in 2012 with the aim to collect and increase awareness of Russian art, announces that it will support the highly anticipated Cosmonauts: Birth of the Space Age exhibition at the Science Museum, which will open in London tomorrow. The exhibition will feature the most significant collection of Soviet spacecraft and artefacts ever to be shown in the UK, while also providing an insight into the cultural and spiritual context that started and shaped the Russian space age.


The exhibition tells the remarkable story of scientific and technological ingenuity that kick-started the space age with a record number of firsts for the Soviet Union, including the first human in space, Yuri Gagarin. Amongst the star objects on display at the exhibition will be real cosmonaut-flown spacecraft, including Vostok-6, the actual capsule that carried Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman to travel into space and safely back to Earth in 1963. Visitors will have the rare opportunity to see inside this historic spacecraft in its first ever UK appearance.


Andrey Filatov, the founder of ART RUSSE, said: “Space exploration was a prominent part of many aspects of Soviet life and was a source of pride and inspiration for millions of Soviet citizens over several decades. Space exploration is a colossal milestone in the history of XXth century Russia. The Soviet Union has made a great scientific and practical contribution to the development of the space age. That’s why for us it is a privilege to sponsor this exhibition, which will introduce Western audiences to a unique collection of artefacts, giving them a greater insight into this key facet of Russian history that was also reflected in Russian cultural heritage.”


The remarkable achievements of the American Apollo Moon programme were widely broadcast at the time, Russia’s own competing manned Moon programme was kept secret until 1989. Revealed for the first time in the UK, visitors of the exhibition will see the monumental five metre tall LK-3 lunar lander, the finest example of its kind in existence today. Designed to take a single cosmonaut to the Moon’s surface, three Soviet lunar landers were tested successfully in space although none were sent to the Moon.


This period had an important impact on art and the excitement and optimism surrounding the start of the space age are also well captured in two paintings that are part of the Art Russe collection. Andrey Sokolov’s “The solar lace of Belorus” (1983), provides an awe-inspiring view of the Earth, giving the artist’s interpretation of what the USSR looked like from the stratosphere. “Gagarin (God Bless!)” (2011), by Anatoly Gankevich, reinterprets the early Soviet socialist realism artworks and depicts Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, as a saintly figure.


The Cosmonauts exhibition represents a major collaboration between the Science Museum, the State Museum Exhibition Centre ROSIZO and the Federal Space Agency, Roscosmos, with support from Art Russe and the Blavatnik Family Foundation.


ADDITIONAL INFORMATION


Dates: 18 September 2015 – 13 March 2016

Admission: £14, concessions available

Tickets: sciencemuseum.org.uk/cosmonauts

Address: Exhibition Road, London SW7 2DD


ARTWORKS



“With God” (2011), Anatoly Gankevich. Oil on canvas


Anatoly Gankevich (born 1965) is a prominent Ukrainian artist who attended the Centre for Modern Art at Yakimanka. Gankevich's works reinterpret the early Soviet socialist realism artworks that were filled with euphoric mood.



“The solar lace of Belorus” (1983), Andrey Sokolov. Oil on canvas, 100 х 150 cm.


Andrey Sokolov (1931 - 2007) is a Russian artist, who dedicated his artistic career to depicting space exploration without leaving his studio. As part of the so-called Fantasy art movement, Sokolov painted and reinterpreted subjects like planets, views from space and space equipment often adding fictional and mythical elements.