There are strange rapprochements ... Automatic translate

Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts Alexander Pushkin presents an exhibition project of the famous French curator Jean-Hubert Martin "There are strange rapprochements…", which will become one of the main events of the museum in 2021. A large-scale exposition, including more than four hundred works of art and objects of natural science collections, will occupy the main exhibition axis of the main building of the museum and 7 halls on the second floor. Spectators will meet not only with the well-known exhibits of Pushkin, but also with that part of the collection that is usually hidden in the storerooms, as well as with works of old masters and contemporary artists from more than 50 domestic and foreign museum and private collections. Tickets for the exhibition can only be purchased online. An exposition map and a brochure with additional information can be found on the dedicated exhibition website.

Created by Jean-Hubert Martin, the exhibition offers a fundamentally new look at the museum’s collection and at the history of art in general. Destroying the concept of a museum as a temple or a gigantic archive with carefully constructed hierarchies, the curator proposes to turn it into a play space and see the similarities and differences that exist between the works of different eras, despite the chronological and geographical distances. This is how a new classification of artistic creation is born, which allows you to look at classical art as modern.

Thinking by analogy, which artists so often use, becomes the key to understanding the essence of this exhibition experiment. Neglecting the traditional museum tools in the form of explications and expanded labels, which give the viewer a clear understanding of the place given to a particular work in the history of art, the curator suggests relying primarily on his own impressions. Carefully selected series of visual analogies will help to discover similarities in the images of draperies in medieval icons and techniques of cubist artists, to find hidden symbols in famous paintings and to trace how Madonna Ingres turned into Malevich’s Black Square.

Jean-Hubert Martin, curator of the exhibition: “There are strange encounters…” exhibition appeals to your eye, imagination and interpretation to become a play for all senses and a space of discovery. Artists think visually and draw inspiration from the world’s art. They often give preference to atypical works and love surprises. As here, their choice often contradicts the logic and categories of art history. The works of art are organized into chapters, lined up in a single sequence, where each exhibit is conditioned by the previous one and anticipates the next. The goal of this innovative art walk is to provide fun and knowledge. "

The exhibition consists of 13 sections, each of which has its own plot related to the refutation of mythologemes prevailing in the history of art.

"From a hidden image to a double one . " The exposition opens with a section that immediately draws the viewer into the game. In the branches of trees, rocks, folds of clothing depicted in the paintings, you can often find the outlines of human faces or animals. Is this an accident or hidden messages of artists?

“Antique sculpture. From white to polychrome . " For centuries, the whiteness and fragmentation of antique sculpture was mistakenly perceived as an unshakable absolute. This misconception, which formed during the Renaissance on the basis of archaeological discoveries, largely determined the European understanding of good taste and therefore proved to be so tenacious. How do such mythologemes affect the subsequent development of art, in what other traditions do they reveal themselves and how do they relate to modernity?

"From the beloved to the witch." Love is one of the dominant themes in classical Western European art. The museum collection allows you to demonstrate a wide range of female images, and the abundance of works on this topic - to compose a sequence of paintings and drawings that tell a love story. Among the plots, one can find both an invitation to a date, courtship and marriage, and fear caused by female beauty and seductiveness, turning against women and provoking accusations of witchcraft and executions.

"From Apple to the Globe". The next section of the exhibition invites the viewer to go on a journey through the images of the world and space. The narrative, which begins with the forbidden fruit in the hands of Adam and Eve, obeys the dominant image of the circle in the works presented here, passes through different cultures, religions and countries and again returns to Christian iconography. The apple has turned into a globe in the hands of Jesus - the Savior of the world.

"From the mirror to the double" . The section continues the theme of visual play. Such a common attribute in mythological and genre painting, like a mirror, serves as a tool for disturbing the perception of space and allows the artist to combine different points of view.

"The observer is being watched . " For an image to exist, a viewer is needed. How often did we find ourselves in museums that portraits were following our eyes?

"From youth to old age . " The chronological principle of constructing the exposition is traditional for the museum. However, in this section, the works are arranged not by the dates of their creation, but by the age of the characters depicted in the paintings or in the sculpture.

"From the Horizon to the Bird’s Flight" . One of the favorite genres in painting is landscape. In images of nature, the laws of perspective require you to determine the vanishing point on the plane of the picture. The collection of the museum allows you to compose a whole series of images from a gradually rising point of view - from the horizon line to a vertical view from above.

"From fold to geometry" . The gravitation towards simple forms, the identification of geometric structural elements is equally relevant for the Russian icon, and for the painting and graphics of the old masters, and for the artists of the twentieth century. François Morellet’s grids find unexpected analogies in decorative oriental panels and drawing of Egyptian burial shrouds, while the paintings of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque are consonant with the icon-painting tradition.

It is no coincidence that one of the most important sections of the exhibition is entitled "From the Black Square" to Tashism. Two schools " . The Parisian magazine "Les Hommes du Jour" published in 1920 a spread with the title "Two Schools", where two Holy Virgins were reproduced opposite each other - Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, concentrated and reverent, and Francis Picabia, reduced to an ink blot. This can be interpreted as a contrast between classicism and expressionism. Despite its radicalism, Kazimir Malevich’s Black Square continues the pictorial tradition: transforming in the work of Alexander Rodchenko, he gave birth to Yves Klein’s monochrome. As for the ink stain, it led through Max Ernst and, again, Rodchenko to the expressive gesture of Georges Mathieu, Shiraga Kazuo and Jackson Pollock.

Five Senses . The most interactive section of the exhibition, where each of the five possibilities of feeling the world given to a person is illustrated with classic works and works of contemporary artists. Art that can be heard, touched and even tasted.

"From curly rocks to abstract sculpture . " In contrast to the principles of classical Western aesthetics, in the Chinese "stones of scholars" gongshi is not valued beauty, but the strangeness and uncommonness of the form. This taste for playing with volume and space opened up new paths for the development of sculpture.

"From bacchanalia to tavern" . Originating from the Greek Dionysios, bacchanalia became a common subject in art, allowing artists to depict hedonistic scenes. However, mythology is gradually replaced by genre painting, the mythological is replaced by the trivial.

From December 1 to December 24, the museum will host the annual XLI International Music Festival “December Evenings of Svyatoslav Richter. Variations in a Free Style ”, the programs of which echo the most striking subjects of the exhibition.