IN MEMORY OF ALEXEI NAVALNY

4-11 June 2026
Open daily:  12-7 pm
Private view: 4 June 5 – 8 pm
Closing event: 11 June 5 – 8 pm

Alexei Navalny pursued politics under an ever-tightening dictatorship — at a time when politics as a vocation was ceasing to exist.

For many years, in defiance of pervasive fear and sweeping bans, Alexei was living proof that resistance was possible.

Through his own mistakes and the reckoning that followed, Alexei became the one figure who eventually united people of vastly different views.

In short, Alexei Navalny was the embodiment of hope for change in Russia — through all the detentions, arrests, surveillance, assassination attempts, stints in solitary confinement… until they poisoned him in prison, robbing us of that hope.

This exhibition, its works, and the accompanying album deliberately set aside what might be called ‘politics.’ We focus instead on Alexei the man: his faith and convictions, for which he died a martyr.

On June 4, 2026, Alexei Navalny would have turned just 50 years old. Full of life as he was, he continues to remind us through the works created for this exhibition that “you cannot let yourself be intimidated,” “you shouldn’t, you must not give up,” and that “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.”

Without question, Alexei will one day become a symbol of a new Russia, with streets and universities bearing his name. For now, we — his contemporaries — are acutely aware that we bore witness to the path of a hero: that of a man who stood by his principles to the very end.

With this exhibition, we set out to defy oblivion. The world moves at such speed that, in our dark times, one hero alone is not enough to slay the dragon.

Let us follow Alexei’s example — and even if we are afraid to stand up and be counted, let us do what we can — if not great things, then at least conscious, deliberate steps in the struggle against barbarism.

We Exist! Foundation