The Costakis collection represents in chronological order, from approximately 1910 – 30, almost all the artists who have been associated with the Russian avant–garde in one way or the other, and whose work reflect the ideological and formal quests of their age. Very well represented are Kasimir Malevich, Vladimir Tatlin, El Lissitsky, Liubov Popova, Olga Rozanova, Nadeshda Udaltsova, Alexandr Rodchenko, Solomon Nikritin, Ivan Kliun, Gustav Klucis, Ilya Chashnik, Boris Ender, Alexandr Drevin, Ivan Kudriashev, Antonia Sofronova, Konstantin Vialov, and many others who form a unified and diverse whole, representing a real challenge for the future researcher to rewrite the “continuation” of a multifaceted and intensely problematic history of art. 
The works of some of the artists, like Popova, Kliun or Klucis, who are each represented with anything between sixty to a hundred works, could constitute a complete collection on their own. It has become clear that the essential aims of the State Museum of Contemporary Art will be the creation of proper conditions for the unrestricted study of this massive amount of material, connecting the Museum with the University and specifically with the department of History of Art for the benefit of students and post-graduate researchers, the improvement of the collection’s maintenance an cataloging, and the development of relations between European and American research institutions and art foundations.
The works of the collection speak to us vividly about the radical changes that took place in the arts at a critical time in European history. They are the “masterpieces” of a collection that refers to key personalities of an era, to pioneering movements and artistic directions, social systems and complex, multifaceted developments that have all the hallmarks of a fascinating, revolutionary era.
Miltiades Papanikolaou, DIRECTOR OF S.M.C.A.
