The Lambsdorff collection, shown for the first time at Volker Diehl Gallery, offers a rare glimpse into Moscow’s unofficial art world during one of the most turbulent decades of Soviet history. Formed between 1982 and 1986 by Count and Countess Lambsdorff, it captures a moment when underground artists, foreign diplomats and the first signs of cultural liberalisation briefly converged.

This gallery in Berlin’s Charlottenburg has been showing unofficial Russian (then, Soviet) art even before obtaining its current name: an exhibition of Sergej Volkov was held here in 1989, while the venue was still called Folker Skulima, and Volker Diehl was a partner.

The countess and count Lambsdorff are well-known collectors of Russian art. Old aristocracy with a view, currently living in the same part of Berlin, and old acquaintances of the gallerist. It is only natural that at some point, they decided to show their collection here.

The Lambsdorff family settled in the Baltics in the 15th century and subsequently developed a long tradition of service to Russia. One of its most prominent members was Vladimir Lambsdorff, Russian Foreign Minister at the turn of the 20th century. In this context, it seems almost natural that Hagen Graf Lambsdorff, from the German branch of the family, should have gravitated towards diplomatic work in Moscow, then the capital of the Soviet Union, where he headed the cultural department of the West German embassy in the 1980s. His son is currently serving as Germany’s envoy to the Russian Federation until summer 2026, when he is expected to take up a new posting in Israel.

Old aristocracy, still living today in Berlin’s Charlottenburg. Then comes the art: what is so special about this group of works? When asked about working with it, the curator Evgenia Kiseleva-Afflerbach states: “In my view, the personal dimension is central to any private collection. Rather than resisting it, this is something to be acknowledged and made visible as part of the exhibition itself. The collector’s personality, their taste, and their relationships with artists play a defining role in shaping the narrative. That is why the exhibition “Cracks in the Ice” partially recreates a domestic hanging, retaining the original “home” frames. The accompanying mini-catalog opens with memoirs by Countess Lambsdorff, originally written for family members only. It is thanks to her trust in Volker Diehl and, I hope, in me, that this remarkable historical document is now being made available to a wider public.

The exhibition at Volker Diehl gallery is relatively small in scale, and that sense of presence really comes through in the selection of works. Rather than focusing on the big names in the collection, like Bulatov or Kabakov, it turns instead to artists who were personally close to the Countess and Count Lambsdorff: Nikita Alexeev, Sven Gundlach, or the rather enigmatic Vladimir Yakovlev, whom the Countess even supported personally during his time in hospital.”

Count and Countess Lambsdorff were initially collectors of works by the German ZERO group, before becoming acquainted with Moscow’s local underground scene. At the time, Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev (1906–1982) was still alive, and the stasis later described as the “Long 1970s”, or Stagnation, seemed set in stone.

Underground artists existed in a state of near-permanent internal emigration, developing practices that were seen only by close collaborators and a small circle of foreign diplomats, some of whom also became occasional buyers. The specific language of Moscow Romantic Conceptualism had been developing since the late 1970s, with the Collective Actions group and its performances outside Moscow playing an instrumental role in this process. Nikita Alexeev (1953–2021) was one of its founding members. The first wave of Moscow Conceptualism was followed by a second, represented among others by the Mukhomor ('Toadstool') group.

It was around 1982 that Ruth Countess Lambsdorff first met Nikita Alexeev at a reception where he was, somewhat improbably, also present. He subsequently invited her to an exhibition held in his apartment, the venue that became known as APTART, where he showed works by Mukhomor. In her short memoir for the current exhibition catalogue, she writes: “The APTART exhibition became known. It caused a sensation – on two by two metres! Western journalists wrote enthusiastically about ‘Fresh Art,’ and at a time when Brezhnev’s reactionary cultural policy still lay like a wet towel over the cultural scene.”

The period up to around 1984 is represented in the exhibition primarily by lyrical works by Anatoly Slepyshev (1932–2016), portraits by Vladimir Yakovlev (1934–1998), and geometric compositions by Eduard Steinberg (1937–2012).

As part of the pressure exerted on unofficial art, the young and irreverent members of the Mukhomor group were forcibly conscripted into the army in 1984, including Sven Gundlach (1959–2020), only to return in 1986. Both Nikita Alexeev and Gundlach are prominently represented in the Lambsdorffs’ collection, although the works on display belong to a later phase of their practice.

By the mid-1980s, however, the atmosphere had begun to shift. The rapid succession of Kremlin funerals – often referred to as “carriage races” – was set in motion by Brezhnev’s death in 1982, as the ageing Soviet leadership began to unravel. Against the dark backdrop of economic decline and the war in Afghanistan, Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in 1985 and set about introducing long-delayed reforms. Even before Perestroika was formally announced in 1986, the country was beginning to open: foreign tourism increased, and cultural exchange gathered momentum. In 1986, for example, Thomas Neurath of Thames & Hudson visited the Soviet Union, and the publisher released ‘Another Russia’, one of the first books dedicated to “unofficial” photography.

At the same time, new artistic communities were forming. In 1985, the Kindergarten squat was established, with Andrey Roiter (b. 1960), also represented in the Lambsdorff collection, among its founders. This was followed in 1986 by the now legendary Furmanny Lane squat, a central hub of Moscow’s artistic life. Upon returning from military service, Sven Gundlach became active there and soon set about forming a band composed of artists. The group, Srednerusskaya Vozvyshennost, included Nikita Alexeev. Their lack of formal musical training was beside the point: conceived as a quasi-punk project, their performances – combining distorted Russian rock with official clichés and deliberately “bad” vernacular poetry – struck a chord and achieved unexpected success. The visual works by these artists in the current exhibition date from this same period, 1986–1988, and reflect their experience of a rapidly changing cultural landscape.

Reflecting on how these works entered the collection, curator Evgenia Kiseleva-Afflerbach notes: “…very often these were the first sales in the artists’ careers. However, many works were also simply gifted or dedicated to the couple, such as Leonid Purygin’s small ‘altar’ piece or Vladimir Yakovlev’s woman's portrait.”

The closing years of the decade brought profound transformation. In 1987, Nikita Alexeev emigrated. In 1988, the landmark Sotheby’s auction in Moscow propelled several artists to international prominence and marked a turning point in the global reception of Soviet art. Exhibitions abroad multiplied, and international interest surged. Around the same time, Gundlach disbanded Srednerusskaya Vozvyshennost, as the project risked becoming too professional for its original ethos.

Meanwhile, the political landscape was shifting just as dramatically. In 1988, Estonia declared the primacy of its laws over those of the Soviet Union, initiating what became known as the “Parade of Sovereignties.” Latvia, Lithuania and Azerbaijan followed in 1989, with other republics – including Russia – doing the same in 1990 and 1991, ultimately leading to the failed August 1991 coup and the dissolution of the USSR. The liberalisation introduced under Gorbachev proved insufficient to stabilise a system already weakened by structural economic failure and rising centrifugal forces.

It was in this context, in 1989, that the Cold War was formally brought to an end. That same year, still within the Soviet Union, one of the first independent contemporary art galleries was founded in Moscow by Aidan Salakhova, Evgeny Mitta and Alexander Yakut. Known simply as the First Gallery, it signalled the emergence of a new, more open art infrastructure.

Few decades could have been more turbulent, and despite the clarity afforded by hindsight, little of this could have been anticipated at its start. Count and Countess Lambsdorff lived through much of this period in Moscow, forming close relationships with artists and offering support where they could. In doing so, they have preserved not only individual works, but a reflection of an entire moment in history – captured in the form of a remarkable and deeply personal collection.