Dasha Zhukova’s Garage art centre to transform into museum

Garage, the Moscow cultural centre headed by art collector and socialite Dasha Zhukova, will be transformed into a museum of contemporary art at the cost of $27m. The construction of the new museum will be overseen by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas and his firm OMA.

In an interview with Kommersant, Garage Director Anton Belov explained the logical evolution of the institution. “We have long been engaged with museum work in actual fact. All that remained was for us to formally confirm this status. Among other things, this will help us in our work with western institutions who are always seeking host sites for art work,” he said.

At an international conference at Garage last week, participants discussed the future of the institution as a museum, concluding that in the immediate future, it would exhibit a rich archive of material on the history of Russian contemporary art. Zhukova, the partner of Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich, opened Garage in 2008 in Moscow’s iconic Bakhmetevsky Bus Garage, an avant-garde gem, before moving to Gorky Park in 2012.

New branding of the new museum will be designed by New York-based agency Li, whose client list includes the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles where Zhukova sits on the board. The official documentation regarding Garage’s new status as a museum will be completed by this summer, however the reconstruction and completion of work on the new building will see the museum open in 2015.