The Ruarts Foundation presents a new, large-scale, philosophical and artistic project, ‘The Triumph of Melancholy'. This exhibition restores melancholy to its true depth, lost in modern language, where it is reduced to fleeting sadness. The title reveals itself as an oxymoron. Triumph, which belongs to the lexicon of celebration, victory and jubilation, acquires a quiet hypostasis. It is a victory without gesture, a triumph without noise, sunset as an apotheosis. Melancholy is not opposed to triumph — this is its hidden, deeper modality.

The idea is developed by more than 30 contemporary artists represented in the exposition, which is based on works from the collection of the Ruarts Foundation, as well as museums and private collections. Among them are Olga Bozhko, Sergei Borisov, Alexei Veselovsky, Georgy Guryanov, Pyotr Dyakov, Valery Koshlyakov, Vitaly Pushnitsky, Mikhail Rozanov, Igor Samolet, and many others.

Melancholic feeling is invariably associated with the experience of ruins — the acceptance of something once whole and complete that has become subject to time. The exhibition will feature part of the large-scale multi-genre project ‘Northern Arcadia. A Projection of Paradise' by Sergey Sonin and Elena Samorodova, which defines the architectonics of ‘The Triumph of Melancholy'. ‘Arcadia' appears as a space ‘after everything' - a world filled with fragments of bygone eras and the last evidence of men who were once present, then vanished. "The transience of man is not a curse, but a condition of beauty. It is precisely because we are mortal that the sunset over ruins makes our hearts ache," concludes the curator of this exhibition, Nina Gomiashvili.