"At the end is the beginning." Automatic translate

The Pushkin Museum together with the Stella Art Foundation will present in Venice a special project of the Pushkin XXI direction “At the end is the beginning” - an exhibition of works by contemporary artists dedicated to the 500th anniversary of the great Venetian artist Jacopo Robusti, nicknamed Tintoretto, which will be held during 58 Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art.

Installations by contemporary artists Dmitry Krymov, Irina Nakhova and Gary Hill will fill the space of the Church of San Fantin, where once the picture of Tintoretto was kept. They will enter into dialogue with the canvas of the modernist artist Emilio Vedov - a follower of Tintoretto– and the historical context of the place. The intervention project of the team! Mediengruppe Bitnik will complement the program and emphasize the atmosphere of ownership and belonging to the secret Venetian fraternity.

“Tintoretto is Venice, even if he does not write it,” said Jean-Paul Sartre about the artist. In Tintoretto’s painting, the key category was space, in his works he embodied an infinite universe, moving and bubbling. The works of contemporary artists, specially created for this project, rethink the innovative approach of the great Venetian and offer viewers to immerse themselves in the Tintoretto universe. Each of the works comprehends the most important motives of Tintoretto’s work, among which are the spiritual unity of people, the miracle motif, as well as his masterful work with the dynamics of space and the expressive capabilities of light.

The project was built not as a traditional exhibition, but as a modern mass, where each act is a new work that fills the entire space of the church. In addition to media works, the exhibition will feature the canvas of the Italian abstract artist Emilio Vedova - the main follower of Tintoretto in the XX century, entering into dialogue with the works of contemporary artists.

Theater artist Dmitry Krymov creates a performative installation based on The Last Supper from the church of San Trovazo. Interpreting The Last Supper, he constructs another reality based on trompe-l’oeil in the altar of the Church of Sant Fantin - visual illusion - thereby making the viewer doubt the correctness of his perception.

The media installation of Irina Nakhova consists of three parts, each of which refers to the works of the Italian master. They all reinterpret biblical subjects from the perspective of experiencing modern history. An important motive for Tintoretto’s work for the artist is the dynamics of the human mass, which has a critical emotional intensity. The seething of earthly matter seeks a way out in the transcendental outer space, which is difficult to conceive, but can be felt thanks to the dramaturgy of Nakhova’s media work.

The classic of American media art, Gary Hill, decomposes Tintoretto’s painting elements into spectra and neurons and creates from them a new entity, sounding and shimmering. The starting point for Hill is not an architectural space, but primarily the space of human consciousness. The combination of visual images with intense electronic sound allows you to get a deep synesthetic experience.

One of Emilio Vedova’s later works, presented at the exhibition, Tondo, has the shape of a circle. It reflects the concept of the loop of time. Vedova saw the artist’s mission to record and re-broadcast the eternal themes of clashes that concern the whole world: war, injustice, oppression. Like Tintoretto, he operates not with images, but with whole elements, space. The shape of the circle became an opportunity for him to go beyond the boundaries of a picturesque environment through the combination of space and time.

The Pushkin Museum exhibition will be the first event to open the doors of the San Fantin church for a wide audience after a ten-year restoration. The construction of the church was completed in the 16th century, and the first religious buildings on this site date back to the 10th century.

The team will also take part in the exhibition! Mediengruppe Bitnik and conduct a secret intervention project, allowing the viewer to enter the secret fraternity of Tintoretto. The atmosphere of secrecy, ownership and co-creation will combine their project with the theme of the Venetian fraternities.

Marina Loshak, Director of the Pushkin Museum. A.S. Pushkin: “Tintoretto made changes in art that were contrary to life that seemed regular or traditional. The topic of fraternities is important to us, including the poor fraternities for whose orders Tintoretto worked. This exhibition is about the role of an artist who does not work with wealthy clients, not in finding livelihoods or personal comfort, but so that a person is not distracted from works, among which there is a liturgy, on which he will focus, and which will change him ".

Stella Kesaeva, President of the Stella Art Foundation: “In 2019, our Fund returns to Venice for the seventh time. We have represented Russia three times at the Venice Biennale in the national pavilion, before that, as part of a parallel program, we showed projects at the Ca Rezzonico Museum, at the Tiraoro and Battioro School of Art, and also hosted a special event in 2005 at the Guggenheim Foundation. This time in collaboration with the Pushkin Museum im. The A. Pushkin Foundation is a co-organizer of the exhibition, where contemporary art enters into dialogue with the works of the great Venetian master Tintoretto, whose 500th anniversary is celebrated this year around the world. ”

BIOGRAPHIES

Curators

MARINA LOSHAK - Director of the Pushkin Museum im. A.S. Pushkin, curator, philologist. At different times, she headed the Moscow Center for the Arts (ICC) on Neglinnaya, the Tatintsian Gallery and the Museum and Exhibition Association Manege, which includes the Manezh Central Exhibition Hall; founder of the Proun gallery. Since 2013 - Director of the A. Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts.

OLGA SHISHKO - head of the Pushkin XXI direction, curator, art critic, researcher, author of numerous articles. Organizer of international events, festivals and exhibitions dedicated to the art of new media. Founder of the MediaArtLab Center, the oldest Russian institute engaged in the art of new media.

Painters

GARY HILL (b. 1951, Santa Monica, USA) is a multimedia artist, one of the pioneers of video art, who began working with video and sound art in the 1970s and 1980s. In his videos and installations, the artist explores the relationship between images, sound and language (“Incidence of catastrophe”, “Between Cinema and a Hard Place”), body and technology (“Inasmuch As It Is Already Taking Place”, “Inasmuch As It Has Already Taken Place "). The most famous installations of the artist are Tall Ships, HanD HearD, Viewer, Wall Piece. His solo exhibitions have been held all over the world, including the Pompidou Center (Paris), the Guggenheim Museum (New York), the Barcelona Museum of Modern Art and others. Gary Hill’s works are in the collections of many museums, including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. He has been honored with many awards, including the Golden Lion of the Venice Biennale (1995), the MacArthur Foundation Prize (1998), and the honorary degree from Cornish College of Art in Seattle (2011).

DMITRY KRYMOV (b. 1954, Moscow, Russia) - director, artist, stage designer. Member of the Union of Artists of Russia and the Union of Theater Workers of the Russian Federation. He graduated from the Moscow Art Theater School (1976). His performances participate in prestigious international festivals in Austria, Great Britain, and Germany. Krymov’s performances were awarded the Golden Mask Award six times. Dmitry Krymov’s laboratory is actively touring the world, including in Brazil, the USA, Australia, New Zealand. Since the 1990s he has been engaged in art: painting, graphics, installation. He participated in group and personal exhibitions in Russia and abroad. His works are stored in the collections of the State Tretyakov Gallery, the Russian Museum, the Vatican Museum, and the World Bank. In 2004–2018 he was the artistic director of the laboratory at the Theater School of Dramatic Art theater. The director pays great attention to the interaction of the actor and the stage space, as well as scenography. Among the well-known productions: “The Death of a Giraffe”, “Opus No. 7”, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, “Tararabumbia”, “Honore de Balzac. Notes on Berdichev "and others.

IRINA NAKHOVA (b. 1955, Moscow) - artist, representative of Moscow conceptualism. Works in the genres of painting and installation. Graduated from the Moscow Polygraphic Institute. Since 1989, she has held more than 30 solo exhibitions in Moscow, London, Barcelona, ​​Salzburg, New York, Chicago and other cities in Europe and the USA. Winner of the Kandinsky Prize (2013) in the nomination "Project of the Year". In 2015, she represented Russia at the 56th Venice Biennale.

! MEDIENGRUPPE BITNIK (Carmen Weisskopf, b. 1976, Switzerland; Domagoy Smoglio, b. 1979, Croatia) - media artists who work primarily with the Internet. In their works, they explore the topic of virtual space, including darknet. Their works have been exhibited in many museums and galleries, including: the Minschen Art Museum in Shanghai, the Art Gallery of Ljubljana, the Zurich Art House, the Center for Contemporary Art in Vilnius, the Tehran Biennale and others. The group was awarded the Swiss Art Award and was honored by the jury of the Ars festival Electronica. Their famous projects - “Opera calls. Arias for Everyone ”at the Ural Industrial Biennale of Contemporary Art,“ The Random Buyer ”, for which they created an online bot,“ Sending to Mr. Assange ”, etc.

EMILIO VEDOVA (1919, Venice, Italy - 2006, ibid.) - the main follower of Tintoretto in the XX century; This continuity was dedicated to the exhibition of Germano Chelant in Scuol San Rocco in 2013. After a period of passion for expressionism, in 1942 he joined the Corrente movement, which opposed totalitarian art. In 1946 he became one of the founders of the New Italian Secession. In 1948, he made his debut at the Venice Biennale. In 1960 he was awarded the Grand Prize for Painting, in 1954 he received a prize that allows him to spend three months in Brazil, and in 1997 - the Golden Lion Award for Lifetime Achievement. He taught in Salzburg, Venice and several American universities.

Project consultants

VICTORIA MARKOV - art historian, deputy director for scientific work of the Pushkin Museum im. A.S. Pushkin, one of the world’s leading experts on the art of the Italian Renaissance.

DON JANMATTEO CAPUTO - Director of the Department of Cultural Heritage and Tourism of the Archdiocese of Venice.

GIUSEPPE BARBIERI - art historian, head of the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage at Ca ’Foscari University.

GABRIELLA BELLY - art historian, director of the Venice City Museum Fund.

REFERENCE

State Museum of Fine Arts named after A.S. Pushkin

One of the largest museums of foreign art in Russia. Opened May 31 (June 13), 1912. The founder of the museum was Ivan Vladimirovich Tsvetaev, professor at the Department of Theory and History of Art of Moscow Imperial University, and father of the poet Marina Tsvetaeva. The collection contains about 700 thousand works of different eras - from ancient civilizations to the beginning of the XXI century. The main building of the museum is an architectural monument of the late XIX - early XX centuries, and the entire museum complex includes 27 buildings and structures. The museum houses paintings by French impressionist artists from the collections of Moscow merchants Sergei Shchukin and Ivan Morozov, works of art from Ancient Egypt from the collection of Vladimir Golenishchev, as well as masterpieces of old masters and many other monuments.

Direction "Pushkin XXI"

Since 2014, the Pushkin Museum has been implementing a strategy aimed at attracting a new audience by including works of contemporary art in the museum exposition. In 2017, the museum announced the creation of a new area of ​​activity - the Pushkin XXI program, which is designed to tell viewers about the latest art and its most prominent representatives. The objective of the program is to demonstrate the art of the "new classics" who speak the language of modern forms.

The mission of “Pushkin XXI” is to demonstrate the great achievements of world art culture and to compare modern and classical art. "Pushkin XXI" is an innovative direction where all forms of presentation of modern art come into dialogue, from painting and sculpture to virtual reality and video art.

As part of the direction, the first collection of media art in Russia is being formed. The collection will include works created based on works from the museum’s collection, site-specific projects and works that conceptualize classical art using the latest technology. Among the first acquisitions are video installations by Jonas Mekas (USA) and Gary Hill (USA), a video painting by Marianna Heske (Norway), as well as the trilogy of the Russian art group Provmyza (Sergei Provorov and Galina Myznikova) Despair (2008), Inspiration "(2010) and" Eternity "(2011).

Stella art foundation

A non-profit organization established in Moscow in November 2003 at the initiative of Stella Kesaeva. The aim of the foundation is to support contemporary art, in particular, to encourage projects related to the study of the art of the Moscow conceptual school. The collection of the fund includes more than 1000 works of art of the XX and XXI centuries. The Stella Art Foundation has implemented in Russia and abroad about a hundred projects dedicated to the works of Russian and foreign artists, including in the framework of the Venice Biennale. The foundation has successfully held six events. In 2011, 2013 and 2015, Stella Kesaeva was the commissioner of the Russian pavilion; During these years, the Stella Art Foundation presented three exhibitions of works by artists of the school of Moscow conceptualism: “Empty Zones” by Andrei Monastyrsky (curated by Boris Groys, 2011); “Danae” by Vadim Zakharov (curated by Udo Kittelman, 2013); The Green Pavilion by Irina Nakhova (curator Margarita Tupitsyna, 2015).
www.safmuseum.org

San Fantin Church

The church building is located on the square of the La Fenice Theater in the San Marco district in Venice and bears the name of the Rev. Fantin the Wonderworker. The time of construction of the church and the name of the architect are not known for certain. Some historians suggest that it could be erected in the VI century, while others believe that the building dates from the X century. It is known that the church burned several times. It was rebuilt in the XII century by the Pisani family, then, at the beginning of the XVI century, it was completed by the architect Scarpanino, with the addition of the chapel of the Venetian architect Jacopo Sansovino, which completed the restoration in the middle of the XVI century. According to archives, until the beginning of the 20th century, the church contained the paintings “Liberating Venice from the Plague” and “Pieta” by Gianbattista Piazzetto, “The Holy Family” by Giovanni Bellini and “Maria Visits Elizabeth” by Tintoretto. Now these paintings are exhibited in museums.