The Phenomenon of Naive Art: Perception and Museumification in the 2000s (on the Example of the MMOMA Collection)

The object of this study was the collection of works by Naïve artists in the collection of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA). The subject is the specifics formation and peculiarities of the study of the collection of domestic naive artists in MMOMA. The main purpose of this study is to analyze the scientific and museum work with the collection of naive art in MMOMA, carried out in the period from 2017 to 2023, also analyse the historical context formed by this period and to determine the uniqueness of MMOMA's collection, compared to other public and leading private collections in Russia. The collection of naive art in the MMOMA collection is part of the largest historical collection in Russia, which was formed for 80 years in the ZNUI and in the GRDNT named after V.D.Polenov and includes unique examples of naive art. The following objectives were also accomplished in this study: 1. To place the collection of naive art in MMOMA in the historical context of the formation of private and public collections in Russia from the 1970s to the 2020s; 2. Analyzing the existence of the V.D. Polenov GRDNT collection in the MMOMA from the moment of its creation to the present time; 3. Characterization of the ways and approaches of scientific work with the collection of naive art in MMOMA and its recent results. At this stage of studying marginal or naive art, approaches and methods adopted from classical practices of analysis can be used in synthesis. In this context, the following methods of analysis are the most effective: formal-stylistic, historical-cultural, iconographic and social history of art. This study analyzed the scientific and museum work at MMOMA from 2017 to 2023, which includes the study of artists and works, scientific publications, conferences, an extensive exhibition program, as well as restoration work and technological research.