24 april – 12 may
“Always remember" - an exhibition of 9 paintings by 5 artists - winners of different years of the competition programme of the fund "Assistance to Russian Art". The theme of the Patriotic War of 1941-1945 affected every family. How can we today talk about the event of Big History and at the same time not lose the scale?
"9 May. On this day we honour the memory of the dead with a minute's silence. Our exhibition is a tribute to such silence and it is not by chance that we have chosen painting to mark it. The images of contemporary artists, created with the thought of the past, allow the viewer to go deeper into this memory, they lead way to a bigger conversation about our history," says Elena Titova, Director of the All-Russian Decorative Art Museum.
Each of the paintings at the exhibition "Always Remember" catches and broadcasts its own, personal pinching moment of history. It comes from the experience hard to avoid. "Silence" by Ekaterina Kamynina. "Nature itself prompted me to action," says the author. - From the high bank of the river I saw this place - a huge glass of water, peaceful and deep - and there, on the edge, I wanted to put a human figure. But what kind of figure? It was a someone who had survived the horror as if winning a personal right to silence. It could have been a man... but the fact that it is a woman is even stronger, even deeper in thought".
Konstantin Seleznev's painting "Meeting" depicts two people. The faces are not visible - the figure of the girl hides om the chest of the soldier embracing her. It is a moment for two. The intensity of the palms of the soldier's hands, of the girl’s figure and ankles. The clothes and entourage are authentic, but the choice of angle is contemporary. It is usual in Russian and Soviet painting that such war-encounters are conveyed through the joy of faces, a certain commonality of manner, unfolding to the audience. But this one is the peak and culmination of a long journey towards each other, and it requires privacy. We catch a personal moment that does not presuppose the viewer.
There is a family story behind Ilya Lebedev's "Without Rehearsal". His grandfather, who had no opportunity to study music, loved music so much that he even made his own stringed instruments, and in Königsberg, entering a house left by the owners, he saw a real mandolin and touched it for the first time - as a revived memory of dreams before the war. This story formed the basis of the picture. A soldier in a Soviet uniform. His head is bandaged, but also bandaged is a German grand piano covered with something white on top. The meeting of two worlds and one music. Silence in the midst of war.
Thus three works by three different artists give the theme of war a silence through which we better understand the man at that time.
The memory of the war in four paintings by Elena Bolotskikh is conveyed through the artist's intense personal experience, through sacred images and signs that speak of the war. "My Father's Jacket" is especially touching. It is the painter’s father's jacket, turned into a collage, becoming almost an icon. The artist's father, a hero of the Battle of Stalingrad, who performed a heroic deed, who stood at the head of the remnants of his regiment after the death of his commander, never wore his jacket with orders, never told about the deed. The slats on his jacket (used instead of proper medals) were a sign of his father's modesty. But during the fire in the house where he lived, the jacket was the only thing he carried out of the fire. Like an icon.
The icon is the ultimate sign of love and suffering, a sign of great overcoming and Bolotsky's work - the icons of war created today shopw the Patriotic War as a great disaster of biblical scale. On the other hand they become a prayer and a story of intercession. There are two such "icons": the suprematic "Archangel Michael - Leader of the Heavenly Host" with childidhly bare feet, and "Victory Day" where white doves fly up, an angel trumpets the news and the Virgin Mary in red bows down.
"Holiday at the Balflot" by Pyotr Lyubaev, whose grandfather was a war correspondent for the newspaper Pravda, is also resolved in a planar manner. It is a moment of celebration and jubilation that turns warships into flowers. The ships salute the people - the living and the dead.
The theme of celebration as a special moment of encounter is continued by Konstantin Seleznev's second work "9 May in Butovo". The work looks like an amateur photograph of bringing flowers to the monument. But something amazing is done by the painting itself. As if showing the general structure of the moment, the painting connects flowers, modern children, and the monument within a common wave, almost an embrace.
Each of the paintings at the exhibition "Always Remember" catches and broadcasts its own, personal pinching moment of history. It comes from the experience hard to avoid. "Silence" by Ekaterina Kamynina. "Nature itself prompted me to action," says the author. - From the high bank of the river I saw this place - a huge glass of water, peaceful and deep - and there, on the edge, I wanted to put a human figure. But what kind of figure? It was a someone who had survived the horror as if winning a personal right to silence. It could have been a man... but the fact that it is a woman is even stronger, even deeper in thought".
Konstantin Seleznev's painting "Meeting" depicts two people. The faces are not visible - the figure of the girl hides om the chest of the soldier embracing her. It is a moment for two. The intensity of the palms of the soldier's hands, of the girl’s figure and ankles. The clothes and entourage are authentic, but the choice of angle is contemporary. It is usual in Russian and Soviet painting that such war-encounters are conveyed through the joy of faces, a certain commonality of manner, unfolding to the audience. But this one is the peak and culmination of a long journey towards each other, and it requires privacy. We catch a personal moment that does not presuppose the viewer.
There is a family story behind Ilya Lebedev's "Without Rehearsal". His grandfather, who had no opportunity to study music, loved music so much that he even made his own stringed instruments, and in Königsberg, entering a house left by the owners, he saw a real mandolin and touched it for the first time - as a revived memory of dreams before the war. This story formed the basis of the picture. A soldier in a Soviet uniform. His head is bandaged, but also bandaged is a German grand piano covered with something white on top. The meeting of two worlds and one music. Silence in the midst of war.
Thus three works by three different artists give the theme of war a silence through which we better understand the man at that time.
The memory of the war in four paintings by Elena Bolotskikh is conveyed through the artist's intense personal experience, through sacred images and signs that speak of the war. "My Father's Jacket" is especially touching. It is the painter’s father's jacket, turned into a collage, becoming almost an icon. The artist's father, a hero of the Battle of Stalingrad, who performed a heroic deed, who stood at the head of the remnants of his regiment after the death of his commander, never wore his jacket with orders, never told about the deed. The slats on his jacket (used instead of proper medals) were a sign of his father's modesty. But during the fire in the house where he lived, the jacket was the only thing he carried out of the fire. Like an icon.
The icon is the ultimate sign of love and suffering, a sign of great overcoming and Bolotsky's work - the icons of war created today shopw the Patriotic War as a great disaster of biblical scale. On the other hand they become a prayer and a story of intercession. There are two such "icons": the suprematic "Archangel Michael - Leader of the Heavenly Host" with childidhly bare feet, and "Victory Day" where white doves fly up, an angel trumpets the news and the Virgin Mary in red bows down.
"Holiday at the Balflot" by Pyotr Lyubaev, whose grandfather was a war correspondent for the newspaper Pravda, is also resolved in a planar manner. It is a moment of celebration and jubilation that turns warships into flowers. The ships salute the people - the living and the dead.
The theme of celebration as a special moment of encounter is continued by Konstantin Seleznev's second work "9 May in Butovo". The work looks like an amateur photograph of bringing flowers to the monument. But something amazing is done by the painting itself. As if showing the general structure of the moment, the painting connects flowers, modern children, and the monument within a common wave, almost an embrace.