Daria Kotova Named Director of Moscow’s Garage Museum
148April 19, 2025
TheGarage Museum of Contemporary Artin Moscow on April 17 announced Daria Kotova as its new director, effective immediately. Kotova, who since 2021 has served as director of the Garage Endowment Fund, succeeds Anton Belov in the role. Belov had led the institution since 2010, shepherding itsmoveto its current home in Gorky Park, initiating its publication program and founding its Russian contemporary art archive.
Born in 1989, Kotova joined the Garage in 2010 after graduating from Moscow State University’s Journalism Faculty. First working as an assistant in the museum’s public relations department, she rose to become head of development, marketing and advertising in 2014 before taking charge of the $8 million-plus Garage Endowment Fund seven years later. As marketing director, she established the museum’s patronship program; worked on the First and Second Garage Triennial of Russian Contemporary Art, in 2017 and 2020, respectively; and was involved with the museum’s 2017 Takashi Murakami exhibition“Under the Radiation Falls.”
“I would like to thank the museum’s founders for their trust in me,” said Kotova in a statement. “During this new stage in the history of Garage I am sure that my colleagues and I will continue to build Garage as a living, dynamic museum.”
Founded by Dasha Zhukova and Roman Abramovich in 2008, Garage initially occupied an old bus garage before moving to Gorky Park. In 2021, it announced an expansion plan that would see it transform the park’s Hexagon Pavilion into an exhibition space. In February 2022, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the museum said it would pause exhibitions “until the human and political tragedy that is unfolding in Ukraine has ceased.” Garage since then has regularly hosted film screenings and other events. The museum has not yet said when it will reinstate its exhibition programming.