Branch Automatic translate

Pushkin Museum im. A. S. Pushkin presents the exhibition "Branch". The project is dedicated to the organic forms of wood, which became a source of inspiration for a number of masters of the 20th century. Among them are Mikhail Matyushin, Stepan Erzya, Sergei Konenkov, Alexander Tyshler, Orest Vereisky and others. The exhibition includes works from the collections of the Pushkin Museum im. A. S. Pushkin, the State Tretyakov Gallery, the Museum of Organic Culture (Kolomna), the Mordovian Republican Museum of Fine Arts named after S. D. Erzya, as well as works from private collections.

The artists whose works can be seen in the exhibition were passionate about working with wood, while the organic principle in their compositions remained dominant, and the natural forms of wood remained practically untouched. One of the first masters in Russia who began to consistently preserve the natural form and structure of organic wood was art theorist Mikhail Matyushin. It is he who can be called the ideologist of the "organic movement" in the Russian avant-garde. In one of the sections of the exhibition, a series of objects created by him is presented, united by the name "root sculptures". These sculptures are in tune with the late graphic works of Nikita Alekseev, one of the key representatives of Moscow conceptualism, placed in the same room.

One of the sections of the exhibition presents the works of the sculptor Stepan Erzya, who called his creative style "community with nature." As a working material, the famous master chose for himself the textured species of subtropical trees, which had not been used by any sculptor before. In the bends of exotic trees, their roots and trunks, the artist saw the most unexpected images - from real historical figures to mythological and fairy-tale characters.

An important part of the exhibition explores the work of artists who worked with wood in the 1950s-1980s. During this period, the authors, known for their paintings and graphic works, turned to the material of wood. Among them - Alexander Tyshler, who created a series of sculptures "Dryads" and "Brides". In addition to these works performed in a realistic manner, he also experimented with abstract forms. Also at this time, the artist Orest Vereisky was fond of sculpture. In his works, he turned parts of the roots and branches of trees into animal figures or into female images.

Another section of the exhibition is devoted to the image of the studio of the artist Dmitry Krasnopevtsev, filled with a variety of remarkable objects, including fragments

ancient trees, branches and snags. These objects often became the heroes of his graphic and pictorial works. In the exhibition space, natural materials from the author’s personal collection will again be in close proximity to his paintings and drawings, for which they served as "models".

The project is completed by a video work by the modern art group Provmyza called Despair, in which people try to become part of their natural environment and merge with it.

The exhibition will be held on the first floor of the Gallery of European and American Art of the XIX-XX centuries and will be accompanied by an educational program.