Vadim Sidur Museum in Moscow

Vadim Sidur is a unique figure in the history of Soviet art. In the 1970s–80s Sidur's works were installed in major cities in Germany and the USA. Western art historians compared Sidur to modernists Henry Moore and Jacques Lipchitz, but in the USSR the sculptor acquired a reputation as a formalist. Sidur was not given state commissions and could not participate in exhibitions. The sculptor's works appear as small-scale plastic art, but most of them were conceived as civic monuments. During Sidur's lifetime their installation was not possible, but after his death and the collapse of the Soviet Union several monuments were placed in the urban space. Among them are "Mourning Mothers" in the Afghan Square of Moscow's Perovo district.

Monument to the Mourning Mothers in Perovo

Vadim Sidur is called a sculptor of heavy emotions. A participant in the Great Patriotic War, he miraculously survived a severe wound that nearly cost him his face. To hide the effects of the injury, he wore a beard for the rest of his life, and he expressed his pain in his sculptures and "balanced the scale of fear." Sidur addressed difficult themes of violence and the fragility of human existence. Unlike Socialist Realist art, which praised victory and radiated optimism and faith in the future, his works are characterized by austere honesty and vulnerability.

Vadim Sidur in the studio

The Vadim Sidur Museum is located in a space on Novogireevskaya Street that, by a fortunate turn of events, came into the possession of one of the sculptor's friends. Originally a theater had been planned for this building, but it was not well suited to that purpose. In 1987 a posthumous solo exhibition of Vadim Sidur, organized by his son Mikhail, opened here. During the two months the exhibition was on view it was visited by more than 15,000 people. A year later, at the initiative of the family and friends of the sculptor, a permanent exhibition was opened, and in 1989 the space was granted museum status. In 2014 the museum underwent a major reconstruction, and in 2018 it became part of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA).

Here are presented both Sidur's well-known works: "Portrait of Einstein" (1967), "Babiy Yar" (1966), "Monument to Those Who Died of Love" (1965), and previously unexhibited pieces, including the installation "Contemporary Crucifixion" (1975) from the GrobArt series, as well as a reconstruction of the artist's lost final work, the sculpture "Luda the Doll" (1986). The pavilion's design, developed by Anna Titova, complements the sculptor's modernist visual language and provides an inclusive exhibition environment, taking into account the needs of visitors with disabilities and children.

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