GES-2 was meant to be Moscow’s answer to Tate Modern, but the invasion of Ukraine has cast a pall over the project
On a recent Saturday in April, Muscovites strolled around GES-2, a vast new arts centre built in a disused power station steps away from the Kremlin. But guests visiting the 54,400 sq metres centre, designed by the pioneering Italian architect Renzo Piano, were faced with one hard-to-miss problem – the art was absent.
“It is not the time for contemporary art when people are dying and blood is spilling. We can’t pretend as if life is normal,” said Evgeny Antufiev, a Russian artist who asked for his works to be removed from GES-2 shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February.
