The exhibition covers nearly a quarter of the century, which the largest wars and threats of the 20th century fell on.
The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow has opened the exhibition Facing the Future. Art of Europe 1945-1968, which for the first time reconsiders post-war art of Western and Eastern Europe without ideological oppositions.
"What you will see at the exhibition for the first time highlights the history of great Europe from a new perspective, by way of connecting cultures, rather than dividing them as it used to be in art criticism for many years and which made lots of good East European artists rejected", - the exposition co-curator Peter Weibel, the head of the Karlsruhe Art and Media Center ZKM said at the opening day.
The large-scale project has united about 200 works by artists from Russia, as well as 18 countries of Western and Eastern Europe. The key names here are those of Marc Chagall, Lucian Freud, Pablo Picasso, Gerhard Richter, and Nam June Paik, but they do not outshine the less famous artists presented here.
The art works have arrived at Moscow from various museums and private collections, including the Tate Modern Gallery (London), the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), the Picasso Museum  (Paris) and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum (Madrid). Canvasses, sculptures and documentation of performances have occupied the White Hall, the Colonnade and several halls on each side of it, which were vacated from the permanent exposition on the occasion.
Art will Save Europe
According to Peter Weibel, nowadays, in the time of an unstable political situation, attention should be paid to the fact that "the culture and art create Europe and enable it to remain alive". This idea is unfolded through all the seven sections of the exhibition. The starting point is related to art conveying the all-European war experience of the middle of the 20th century.
"We have to learn the lesson of the past and realize that it is high time to connect a multitude of worlds, and the best tools for this purpose are art and culture. Therefore I believe there is a historical event taking place at the Pushkin Fine Arts Museum now", - Peter Weibel concluded.
Continuation of the Thaw
Since several Moscow museums - the Tretyakov Gallery, the Museum of Moscow and the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts - have at the same time presented projects on post-war art, they have decided to unite in the intermuseum festival "Thaw: Facing the Future". Six round tables will be held in the framework of the exhibition. They will tackle upon the topics that defined public life of Europe from 1945 to 1968. The discussions will be dedicated to fine arts and the theater and crowned with the sitting of the European and Russian museums' heads on the subject of Trauma and Resurrection.