ABOVE: detail from Morning (1958) by Geli Mikhailovich Korzhev-Chuvelev. It’s one of about 50 works on display at the newly renovated Museum of Russian Art through July 31.

The Museum of Russian Art (which, for reasons unknown but presumably compelling, is situated in Minneapolis), reopens to the public today, May 9, in its new location in a renovated church. Whether the idea of a museum that showcases Soviet art in an ex-church is a welcome one in the “Mini Apple” of the midwest is unknown to us; But the museum notes quite rightly on their website that during the cold war Russian art was largely ignored or actively dismissed in the West, and it needs and deserves the exposure now.

To that end they are opening the 11,000 square-foot facility today with a reheated Smithsonian exhibit called “In the Russian Tradition: A Historic Collection of 20th Century Russian Paintings.” Some of the pieces, viewable online, are striking: not just for their quality, but for their similarity to American and European art from the same period. There’s also quite a lot of the usual Stalinesque soft-porn heroic realism—it wouldn’t be Soviet without it—but the small sample available online shows more variety and depth than we would have expected. And admission is only $5.

LINK: The Museum of Russian Art > The New Museum of Russian Art Announces Grand Opening