The exhibition "Total Sur!"

June 5 – August 30, 2026

Halls B & C

Admission: 300 RUB / 150 RUB (discounted)

Victoria Gallery presents "Total Sur!", a group exhibition dedicated to installation art in contemporary Russian art. The exhibition features 16 installation projects created during the 2020s by leading contemporary artists from Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Tomsk, and Samara.

About the exhibition

Installation is one of the key forms of contemporary art. While it occupies a central place in major exhibition projects today, it remains one of the most complex and difficult artistic media to define. Installation blurs the conventional boundaries of an artwork, bringing together space, objects, sound, light, and the viewer’s experience into a single situation.

Total Sur! offers a broad overview of current artistic practices. Across two floors of the Gallery, visitors will encounter leading Russian artists working with the language of installation, including Vsevolod Abazov, Marina Alekseeva and Vladimir Rannev, Pyotr Belyi, Yan Ginzburg, Ivan Gorshkov, Grekht, Alexey Gromov, Erik Zhelezker, Irina Korina, Andrey Syailev, and others.

Curators Sergey Balandin and Ilya Kronchev-Ivanov view installation as an art form directly connected to reality and capable of responding to the challenges of the contemporary world:

«The past five years in Russian history have been marked by challenges and upheavals: geopolitical shifts, legal transformations, the pandemic, and international conflicts. All of these developments have, in one way or another, affected human relationships, forms of communication, everyday practices—and, in turn, art itself, particularly installation art. Due to its spatial and material nature, installation leaves little room for escapism: through its very presence, it draws the viewer into reflecting on the situation in which they find themselves—sometimes fantastical, sometimes absurd, and sometimes intuitively anticipated.»

The exhibition title, Total Sur!, refers to the experience of living within contemporary reality, increasingly described as an era of post-truth. In recent years, reality itself has often been perceived as «surreal,» from global political transformations to the pandemic that generated new myths and forms of collective experience. In such circumstances, reality loses its stability and is increasingly experienced as a contradictory and difficult-to-interpret condition.

Artists

Vsevolod Abazov
Marina Alekseeva and Vladimir Rannev
Pyotr Belyi
Yan Ginzburg
Ivan Gorshkov
Grekht
Alexey Gromov
Erik Zhelezker
Irina Korina
Alexey Korsi
Malyshki 18:22
Roman Sakin
Sever-7
Andrey Syailev
Olga and Oleg Tatarintsev
Vladimir Chernyshov

Curators

Sergey Balandin and Ilya Kronchev-Ivanov

Works Provided from Private Collections

Anton Kozlov
Leonid Kostin
Sergey Limonov

Admission

Admission: 300 RUB

Discounted admission: 150 RUB (school pupils, students, pensioners)

Free admission is available to large families, people with Group I and II disabilities, children up to and including the age of 7, journalists, museum professionals, members of creative unions, veterans and participants of military operations, and members of their families.

Guided Tours

The introductory tour of Total Sur! offers visitors an opportunity to learn about installation as an artistic medium and become acquainted with the work of some of today’s most prominent Russian contemporary artists.

Tours take place in Halls B and C. Group assembly begins 5 minutes before the tour starts at the ticket desk on the first floor.

Tour Guides:
Alexander Mishchenko
Kristina Nizhegorodtseva
Sergey Balandin (curator-led tours only; announced separately)

Join us every Saturday at 4:00 PM for a guided tour of the exhibition.

Tour price: 450 RUB

The exhibition admission ticket is included in the tour price and does not need to be purchased separately.

Private Tours

Private tour (up to 5 people) – 1,000 RUB
Group tour (up to 15 people) – 3,000 RUB

Exhibition tickets must be purchased separately (300 / 150 RUB).

Private tours are available upon request from Tuesday through Sunday between 11:00 AM and 6:00 PM. Payment for private tours can only be made at the ticket desk.

To book a private tour, please fill out the booking form.

Buy a tour ticket Buy a mediation ticket

Exhibition Mediations

Art mediation is a group exhibition tour in which the focus shifts from the guide’s monologue to a dialogue among participants. Together, visitors explore not «What did the artist mean?» but rather what they themselves have seen and felt. The discussion is facilitated by a mediator.

Mediations take place in small groups and encourage every participant to engage in the conversation. In addition to providing brief information about the artworks, artists, and techniques, the mediator asks questions, moderates discussion, and may introduce playful elements or creative practices.

Art mediation is ideal for those who are not looking for ready-made answers and are open to communication and new forms of engagement with contemporary art.

Mediation price: 450 RUB

The exhibition admission ticket is included in the mediation price and does not need to be purchased separately.