Late spring is when Moscow really comes alive — the days are long, the weather is pleasant and numerous festivals and special events start appearing on the calendar. Here's The Moscow Times' guide to making the most of the next few weeks.
Exhibit: The Great Modernists: A Revolution in Art
This huge multimedia space has been transformed to present the works of painters such as Klimt, Munch, Malevich and Kandinsky — artists who have really changed the way we look at art in the modern world. Through the use of enormous screens, mesmerizing music, unusual audio-visual effects and other new and cutting-edge technologies, the artists plunge the viewer into their own personal world of art, offering new perspectives on what art is today.
Artplay, 10 Nizhnya Syromyatnicheskaya Street. Metro: Kurskaya. Until May 31. artplay.ru/events/multimediynaya-vystavka-velikie-modernisty-revolyuciya-v-iskusstve.html
Exhibit: Coming into Fashion: A Century of Photos at Conde Nast
The photography of fashion has become an inherent part of our artistic culture — a testament to the hard work and ambitious dreams of the first fashion photographers at Vogue, taken on by the publishing company Conde Nast in 1909. This exhibition is a fascinating tour through the history of more than 80 legendary photographers and their work on Vogue editions from around the world, from the very earliest days of classic portrait-style photographs to today's abstract, hugely "artistic" and radical fashion statements.
Multimedia Art Museum Moscow, 15 Ostozhenka Street. Metro: Park Kultury. Until June 7. mamm-mdf.ru/en/exhibitions/coming-into-fashion/
Performance: VI Festival of Street Theatre: "The Ecumenical Carnival of Flames"
This fantastic show of light will see some of the best masters of fire shows and groups from around the world, paying tribute to the ancient secular traditions and illuminating "man's struggle with nature." Spectators will enjoy a huge range of sparklingly wonderful shows, from fireworks and pyrotechnics to fire dances and colonnades of flames.
Cultural Center Setunskiy Stan, 56 2nd Setunskoy Proezd. May 16. At 8 p.m. fire-carnival.ru/.
Festival: Holi Color Festival
Holi, the Indian festival of colors, is a celebration of the coming of spring. The Indian belief holds that the more vibrant and all-encompassing the paint you cover yourself with is, the better your luck will be. Moscow will be just one among many countries to celebrate the warmer weather with the Color Festival held at Luzhniki in May. And in addition to freedom of covering yourself and others in colored paint, the festival will also be offering open-air master classes, where participants can learn to knit or make soap; a delicious food court area; trampolines, slides and a pool; a fair featuring handmade crafts, and musical performances by some of the stars of Russian showbiz! Put on your plainest clothes and get ready to be colored!
Luzhniki Stadium, Metro: Sportivnaya. May 23. At 8 p.m. rusholi.ru/goroda-xoli/moskva
Festival: II Polytech Festival of Science and Curiosity
This open-air festival will bring together scientists and artists from all over the world to pique your curiosity and broaden your mind with their interactive, fascinating and accessible displays, lectures and exhibitions about the world around us and scientific discovery. Artists such as Pep Bou ("The beginning of the beginning" — a bubble show), the Russian engineering company AXE ("Filling the gaps"), Russian-Finnish artist Alexander Reichstein (installation "Metamorphosis") and many others will keep young and old alike fascinated, encouraging the exploration of science and the value of curiosity.
The All-Russia Exhibition Center. Metro VDNKh. May 23-24. polymus.ru/eng/flagship_annual_events/polytech_festival.html
Film: Finally in the Cinema: Lucino Visconti and Federico Fellini on the Big Screen
As part of their May program of classic films being brought back to the big screen, Pioner Cinema will be showing Visconti's Death in Venice and Fellini's La Dolce Vita, two landmark films about the collapse of the great illusion and the fall of the idealist epoch. Both films were winners at the Cannes Film Festival, and are must-sees on many film-lovers lists.
Pioner Cinema. 21 Kutuzovsky Prospekt. Metro Kievskaya. May 29-30. pioner-cinema.ru/en/event/at-cinema-at-last/
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