THAW is named after a real  situation experienced by the people and the art world in Russia from the 1960s onwards, a period of slow, gradual but real thaw, a defrost of three quarters of a century’s cultural freeze that happened not in a single decade, but over several decades, culminating in the period of the 1990s known as Glasnost.

Undoubtedly, politics have influenced the arts in Russia, and Marat Guelman, founder of the M+J Guelman Gallery in Moscow, has become something of a legend in his lifetime for both his support of the arts and his often provocative political stance.

The '15 G'  of the subtitle refers to the first 15 years of Marat Guelman's art gallery activities and how the events that took place there changed the artistic panorama of Russia and helped create a real, tangible art scene in Moscow. Radical people who frequented the gallery as audience, supporters, sympathisers and as participating artists were coined "Guelmanites" - even to this day.

Artists in this exhibition include:AES+F, Blue Noses, Vladimir Dubosarsky& Alexander Vinogradov, Gor Chahal, Olga&Alexander Florenskie , Georgy Ostretsov, Juri Shabelnikov, Vasili Tsagolov, Arsen Savadov,Valery Koshlyakov, Dmitry Gutov, Alexander Kosolapov, Dmitry Vrubel & Viktoria Timofeeva, Oleg Kulik, Erbol Meldibekov, Alexey Kallima, Avdei Ter-Oganian.