In 1997, Tsereteli was elected the President of the Russian Academy of Arts. He established the Moscow Museum of Modern Art in 1995, and it officially opened its doors in 1999, becoming the first state museum in the country entirely dedicated to modern and contemporary art. In 1998, Tsereteli had his first solo exhibition at the New Manege, which was dedicated to the memory of his wife, Inessa. This show became the starting point of the numerous travelling shows of his works, which followed in the 2000s-2010s in Russia, Georgia, Latvia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Bulgaria, Italy, France, the United States, Australia, China, and Japan.