Sergei Eisenstein. Outlines of a Concept Automatic translate

The Vellum Gallery and the Eisenstein Center, with the participation of the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art and the State Institute of Art Studies, present an exhibition project for the 80th anniversary of the creation of the historical film epic Ivan the Terrible – Sergei Eisenstein. Contours of Design.

Age limit: 18+.

The Vellum Gallery, together with the Eisenstein Center, the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, and the State Institute of Fine Arts, present a large-scale exhibition project for the 80th anniversary of the creation of Sergei Eisenstein’s historical epic film "Ivan the Terrible". The first part of the film was released in January 1945 and was a resounding success.

The exhibition "Sergey Eisenstein. Contours of a Concept" will be held from January 23 to March 2, 2025 in the Vellum Gallery space in Gostiny Dvor.

Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948) is a great Soviet director with a worldwide reputation, screenwriter, art theorist, and teacher. He created a modern film language and anticipated computer graphics. It is worth remembering that world cinema is built on the “montage of attractions” created by Eisenstein, according to which ideas, objects, and symbols should be shown in collision with each other. A super-complex, intellectual, multifaceted person who began his career in the theater with Meyerhold, was his student, took a lot from his biomechanics method, and transferred it to the screen.

In 1941 he was evacuated to Alma-Ata, where he filmed his masterpiece, the movie Ivan the Terrible.

The exhibition project "Sergei Eisenstein. Outlines of a Concept" will allow us to trace the history of the creation of one of the most famous films of the cult Soviet director, who revolutionized this medium.

The center of the exhibition will be the drawings of director Sergei Eisenstein, which served as sketches of costumes and prototypes of characters in the film "Ivan the Terrible." These drawings, faces, photographs and chronicles are the memory of the era.

The exhibition will feature archival documents and drawings related to Sergei Eisenstein’s three-year stay in Alma-Ata and work on all the Ivan the Terrible series - these are the cycles "Classical Motifs", "Circus" and "Erotica". Such historical artifacts allow us to trace the process of developing the characters’ images, to highlight accents in scenes and costumes. We can see the massive, monumental and motionless images of the boyars, the subtlety and some anxiety of the Tsar’s bride Anastasia, the silhouette of a monk repeating the lines of the tents. It is even more interesting to see sketches for work on the third series, which was never filmed.

A separate block will feature drawings by S. Eisenstein that have nothing to do with the work on the historical drama, but were made during the same period. These are clear, graphic sheets reminiscent of Matisse’s sketches or Japanese woodcuts, as well as expressive, bright works, like wild skeins of lines. This "behind the scenes" of the director’s work is a unique experience that lifts the curtain on the way of thinking of the genius of cinema.

An important addition to the exhibition will be fragments of newsreels, episodes from the third part of the film, scenes not included in the film and photographs from the shooting, as well as a screening of Naum Kleiman’s film "Unknown Ivan the Terrible".

The project will feature soloists from one of the most sought-after groups in Russia, the Academic Grand Choir “Masters of Choral Singing” of Radio Orpheus – concerts are planned to be held during the exhibition.

Curators: Naum Kleiman, Lyubov Agafonova, exhibition architect: Dmitry Muchnik.

Naum Kleiman. Soviet and Russian film scholar and historian. Specialist in the works of S. M. Eisenstein, first director of the State Central Museum of Cinema and the Eisenstein Center in Moscow.

Lyubov Agafonova. Russian art critic, curator, publicist, founder of the Vellum Gallery, collector of Russian art, advisor to the director of the Alexander Solzhenitsyn House of Russia Abroad Museum. Honorary Academician of the Russian Academy of Arts.

Dmitry Muchnik. Graduated from VGIK named after S. A. Gerasimov. Production designer, set designer. Creator of the visual image and design of many TV projects, major events, ceremonies and concert programs in Russia and abroad.