Dasha Zhukova’s transformation of a vast Soviet-era cafeteria into a gallery designed by Rem Koolhaas has turned grim Gorky Park into a hipster hangout
Dressed in short shorts and tight black polo-shirts, the strapping young members of the Moscow Ping Pong Club swipe balls furiously to and fro, while solemn babushkas push trolleys of steaming pelmeni dumplings between them, their wheels occasionally getting snagged in the plush purple carpet. To one side, a group of students busy themselves screenprinting bold slogans on to T-shirts beneath a makeshift wooden canopy, handing them out to bewildered visitors roaming amid the chaos.
In the middle of Moscow’s Gorky Park, in what used to be a thriving Soviet restaurant and social club, it feels as if the clock has turned back 40 years. The crumbling concrete skeleton of the 1960s Seasons of the Year restaurant, derelict for two decades, has been reborn as Garage, the city’s ambitious new museum of contemporary art. The surreal ballet of ping pong and pelmeni is no communist throwback, but an immersive installation by Thai artist Rirkrit Tiravanija.
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