Curated by Hervé Mikaeloff

The Russian historical avant-garde has become a popular brand, often drafted to raise interest in the country’s subsequent cultural phenomena. Organized by visiting French curator Hervé Mikaeloff, “Futurologia” offers two paintings by Kazimir Malevich as appetizers to a survey of contemporary Russian art, with works ranging from Viktor Alimpiev’s hermetic, dance-inflected videos to Ilya Gaponov and Kirill Koteshov’s hyperrealist paintings of coal miners. Mikaeloff proposes that, like Malevich, those more recent artists aim their gaze at the future. “Utopias,” a concomitant exhibition at the Garage: Center for Contemporary Culture, expands on this thesis. While it’s uncertain whether either show will trace a sound lineage between a visionary determined to change the future and the myriad artists content to fantasize about doing so, the attempt promises to be no less interesting to consider.

— Brian Droitcour