Exhibition 'Decorative, Applied and Folk Art of Mordovia'

About exhibition

Acquisition of the decorative-applied art collection at the Erzia Museum proceeded along several directions, covering sections on folk art, traditional crafts, professional decorative-applied art, and mass-produced decorative-applied objects. In the mid-1980s the museum received a collection of archaeology and numismatics. The collection now numbers about 5,000 works representing the creativity of masters of decorative-applied and folk art from Russia and Mordovia, with a special emphasis on the folk costume collection. Unique examples of the national costume of the Mordovian people were gathered during expeditions regularly conducted by the museum in the 1970s–1990s. The artistic and scholarly value of the collection of Mordovian folk art has been highly regarded by a wide range of specialists, artists, scholars, and art lovers. Two years ago, thanks to grant support from the Vladimir Potanin Charitable Foundation, the decorative-applied art exhibition was significantly modernized. New technical solutions and decorative elements have raised the interactivity of the permanent exhibition to a qualitatively new level. Tours of the updated exhibition continue to attract interest from enthusiasts of culture and history of all ages.