A revolutionary situation has developed in Russian museums. Rafters Monument at the Novodevichy Cemetery

MOSCOW, September 27 - RIA Novosti. An exhibition of works by Russian artists created during the era of the 1917 revolution, "Someone 1917", opened at the Tretyakov Gallery, for the first time two canvases by Kazimir Malevich were brought to Russia especially for the exhibition from abroad.

"The Tretyakov Gallery, which holds the most significant collection of art of the 20th century, could not pass by this date ... This exhibition is about the attitude of artists in 1917, the most diverse, representing the most diverse points of view, both ethical and political, philosophical, aesthetic. This is such polyphony, which at the same time falls upon you. This is, to the very last degree, a reflection of the political events that took place before the eyes of these artists," Zelfira Tregulova, head of the Tretyakov Gallery, said at the opening of the exhibition.

According to her, the exhibition features works from 36 museum and private collections in Russia and Europe. "I would like to draw your attention to the fact that for the first time in Russia, two of Malevich's principal works are shown. They are marked "1916", but, according to all experts, this is the end of 1916 - the beginning of 1917. This is the work of Malevich from the Tate Gallery and his or “Suprematism” from the Ludwig Museum in Cologne,” said the head of the Tretyakov Gallery. Visitors to the exhibition will be able to see the work of Marc Chagall from the Pompidou Gallery in Paris at the Tretyakov Gallery on Krymsky Val.

As noted in the museum, the exhibition raises the question of the place of art in a critical era. The goal of the project is to move away from stable stereotypes and come closer to understanding the complex picture of the most important period in the life of Russia. "Art in front of an unknown reality" - this is how the curators conditionally designated the topic, choosing a new approach to its presentation. They abandoned both the usual iconographic principle - the display of works depicting revolutionary events, and the traditional convergence of the political revolution with the art of the avant-garde. The exhibition has been in preparation for more than three years.

Also on Wednesday, the museum opened the exhibition "Wind of Revolution. Sculpture of 1918 - early 1930s", which presents portraits of revolutionaries, workers and Red Army soldiers, projects of monuments created according to the plan of monumental propaganda in 1918, as well as works that reflected the spirit of the revolutionary era .

"We tried to show in this exhibition completely different sides of how sculptors created and felt in this era. These are the leaders, among whom there is a unique portrait of Lenin by Altman, which the audience has not seen for many decades. This is a civil war, noticeable, nameless heroes , but there are things that are exhibited for the first time," said Irina Sedova, head of the museum's sculpture department.

Image copyright Getty Images

The October Revolution of 1917, breaking the old order, gave rise to a new culture. The artists of the young country of the Soviets created bold and innovative works - of course, for the benefit of the state. However, the era of experimentation was short-lived, says a columnist who visited an exhibition at London's Royal Academy of Arts.

If this steel spiral structure had actually been built, it would have surpassed the Eiffel Tower by 91 meters - the tallest man-made structure in the world at that time.

And it would have retained the title of the tallest building in the world for more than 50 years - until 1973, when the first tenants moved into the offices of the twin towers of the World Trade Center.

"Left! Left! Left!"

The Monument to the Third International, also known as Tatlin's Tower, was designed by Russian artist and architect Vladimir Tatlin in 1919, after the October Revolution of 1917. His project was distinguished by a radical novelty of approach.

The steel frame was supposed to contain three geometric shapes made of glass - a cube, a cylinder and a cone. It was assumed that they would rotate around their axis at a rate of one revolution per year, per month and per day, respectively.

In the inner part, it was planned to place the hall of congresses, the chamber of the legislative assembly and the information office of the III Communist International (Comintern) - an organization that was engaged in the dissemination of the ideas of world communism.

Image copyright Victor Velikzhanin/TASS Image caption Model of the unrealized project of the monument to the III International ("Tatlin's tower")

The total height of the tower would have been over 396 meters.

However, this expensive (Russia was an impoverished country in which a civil war was going on at that time) and impractical (is such a construction possible in principle and where, after all, to get so much steel?), an incredibly bold symbol of modernity was never built.

Today it is familiar to us only from photographs of the original model destroyed long ago and reconstructions.

Tatlin was a radical avant-garde artist before the Bolshevik takeover; his pre-revolutionary constructions of wood and metal, which he called "counter-reliefs", were much more modest in size than his tower, but they turned the traditional idea of \u200b\u200bsculpture upside down.

The task of the Soviet artist was to create works for the people and the new society

Soon Tatlin became the main apologist for revolutionary art, whose task was to support the utopian ideal of the country of the Soviets.

A new direction in art, resolutely rejecting the whole past, was intended for citizens of the new world, aspiring exclusively to the future.

It became known as "constructivism" and took its place in the avant-garde column - next to the Suprematism of Kazimir Malevich (whose "Black Square", painted in 1915, represents a kind of milestone in painting) and his follower El Lissitzky.

Image copyright Alamy Image caption The symbolism of the poster by El Lissitzky "Beat the Whites with a Red Wedge": The Red Army crushing the barriers of anti-communist and imperialist forces

The magnificent geometric abstractions of Suprematism turned easel painting into the most radical example of the use of pure forms and colors, and it was Lissitzky who most energetically placed Suprematism at the service of power.

Created by him in 1919, the lithograph "Beat the Whites with a Red Wedge" is politicized to the limit.

The red wedge, crashing into the white circle, symbolizes the Red Army, crushing the barriers of the anti-communist and imperialist forces of the White Army.

In this early work, space is skillfully played with empty and occupied by objects. Later, this style would give rise to prouns - "projects for the approval of the new," as Lissitzky himself called them: a series of abstract paintings, graphic works and sketches in which the techniques of Suprematism would be transferred from two-dimensional to three-dimensional visual dimension.

Interestingly, in the 1980s, it was this work that inspired Billy Bragg to name his band of Labor activist musicians the Red Wedge.

Children of the revolution

Thinking about the art and design of the first ten years of the Soviet Union, we usually remember only such great innovators as the artist Lyubov Popova, who soon called for the abandonment of "bourgeois" easel painting and declared that the task of the artist is to create works for the people and the new society.

Of course, we cannot pass by Alexander Rodchenko, perhaps the greatest photographer, graphic designer and printer of his era.

Image copyright Aleksandr Saverkin/TASS Image caption On the famous poster of Rodchenko (1924), Lilya Brik urges to buy books

However, in those first post-revolutionary years in Russia, there were simultaneously many trends and styles in art.

Not all of them have become famous, because Western art historians have long been interested only in the radical aesthetics of the Russian avant-garde.

At the same time, they readily turn a blind eye to its political overtones and do not pay attention to the substantive part, emphasizing only the purely formal aspects of art.

For the sake of justice, it must be admitted that the same fate was destined for religious and mystical works of art (let's take as an example at least the esoteric motifs that permeate the history of modernism). It is enough for us to perceive these works as picturesque canvases and forms: we ignore most of the symbols, which no longer tell us anything.

Days of free visits at the museum

Every Wednesday you can visit the permanent exhibition "The Art of the 20th Century" in the New Tretyakov Gallery for free, as well as the temporary exhibitions "The Gift of Oleg Yakhont" and "Konstantin Istomin. Color in the Window”, held in the Engineering Corps.

The right to free access to expositions in the Main Building in Lavrushinsky Lane, the Engineering Building, the New Tretyakov Gallery, the house-museum of V.M. Vasnetsov, museum-apartment of A.M. Vasnetsov is provided on the following days for certain categories of citizens in general order:

First and second Sunday of every month:

for students of higher educational institutions of the Russian Federation, regardless of the form of education (including foreign citizens-students of Russian universities, graduate students, adjuncts, residents, assistant trainees) upon presentation of a student card (does not apply to persons presenting student trainee cards) );

for students of secondary and secondary specialized educational institutions (from 18 years old) (citizens of Russia and the CIS countries). On the first and second Sundays of each month, students holding ISIC cards have the right to visit the exhibition “Art of the 20th Century” at the New Tretyakov Gallery free of charge.

every Saturday - for members of large families (citizens of Russia and CIS countries).

Please note that conditions for free access to temporary exhibitions may vary. Check the exhibition pages for details.

Attention! At the ticket office of the Gallery, entrance tickets are provided with a face value of "free of charge" (upon presentation of the relevant documents - for the above-mentioned visitors). At the same time, all services of the Gallery, including excursion services, are paid in accordance with the established procedure.

Visiting the museum on public holidays

On National Unity Day - November 4 - the Tretyakov Gallery is open from 10:00 to 18:00 (entry until 17:00). Paid entrance.

Tretyakov Gallery in Lavrushinsky Lane, Engineering Building and New Tretyakov Gallery - from 10:00 to 18:00 (ticket office and entrance until 17:00)
Museum-apartment of A.M. Vasnetsov and the House-Museum of V.M. Vasnetsov - closed

Paid entrance.

Waiting for you!

Please note that conditions for preferential admission to temporary exhibitions may vary. Check the exhibition pages for details.

Right of preferential visit The Gallery, except as provided for by a separate order of the Gallery's management, is provided upon presentation of documents confirming the right to preferential visits:

pensioners (citizens of Russia and CIS countries),
full cavaliers of the Order of Glory,
students of secondary and secondary special educational institutions (from 18 years old),
students of higher educational institutions of Russia, as well as foreign students studying in Russian universities (except for student trainees),
members of large families (citizens of Russia and CIS countries).

Visitors of the above categories of citizens purchase a reduced ticket in general order.

Right of free admission The main and temporary expositions of the Gallery, except for cases provided for by a separate order of the Gallery's management, are provided for the following categories of citizens upon presentation of documents confirming the right to free admission:

persons under the age of 18;
students of faculties specializing in the field of fine arts of secondary specialized and higher educational institutions of Russia, regardless of the form of education (as well as foreign students studying in Russian universities). The clause does not apply to persons presenting student cards of "trainee students" (in the absence of information about the faculty in the student card, a certificate from the educational institution with the obligatory indication of the faculty is presented);
veterans and invalids of the Great Patriotic War, combatants, former underage prisoners of concentration camps, ghettos and other places of detention created by the Nazis and their allies during the Second World War, illegally repressed and rehabilitated citizens (citizens of Russia and the CIS countries);
military servicemen of the Russian Federation;
Heroes of the Soviet Union, Heroes of the Russian Federation, Full Cavaliers of the "Order of Glory" (citizens of Russia and CIS countries);
disabled people of groups I and II, participants in the liquidation of the consequences of the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (citizens of Russia and the CIS countries);
one accompanying disabled person of group I (citizens of Russia and CIS countries);
one accompanying disabled child (citizens of Russia and CIS countries);
artists, architects, designers - members of the relevant creative Unions of Russia and its subjects, art historians - members of the Association of Art Critics of Russia and its subjects, members and employees of the Russian Academy of Arts;
members of the International Council of Museums (ICOM);
employees of museums of the system of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation and the relevant Departments of Culture, employees of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation and ministries of culture of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation;
volunteers of the Sputnik program - entrance to the exhibitions "Art of the XX century" (Krymsky Val, 10) and "Masterpieces of Russian art of the XI - early XX centuries" (Lavrushinsky pereulok, 10), as well as to the House-Museum of V.M. Vasnetsov and the Museum-apartment of A.M. Vasnetsov (citizens of Russia);
guide-interpreters who have an accreditation card of the Association of Guide-Translators and Tour Managers of Russia, including those accompanying a group of foreign tourists;
one teacher of an educational institution and one accompanying a group of students of secondary and secondary specialized educational institutions (if there is an excursion voucher, subscription); one teacher of an educational institution that has state accreditation of educational activities when conducting an agreed training session and has a special badge (citizens of Russia and the CIS countries);
one accompanying a group of students or a group of military servicemen (if there is an excursion voucher, subscription and during a training session) (citizens of Russia).

Visitors of the above categories of citizens receive an entrance ticket with a face value of "Free".

Please note that conditions for preferential admission to temporary exhibitions may vary. Check the exhibition pages for details.

Since 1927, once a decade, every Soviet art and history museum was obliged to get iconic examples of socialist realism from the storerooms, such as “Lenin on an armored car”, “Lenin in the Spill”, “Winter Storm” and other works on a revolutionary theme, since there were more than enough of them . And now the leading museums of the two capitals: the Tretyakov Gallery, the Hermitage, the Russian Museum, the Historical Museum, the Museum of the Political History of Russia, the Multimedia Art Museum - and almost all museums across the country are reopening anniversary exhibitions, as in the good old Soviet times. The occasion is more than respectful - 100 years, and now museums are not limited to the glorification of the Bolshevik revolution. Some focus on documentaries, fishing out precious bits of history from the archives, while others build their exhibitions on artistic material or present a revolution in the interactive format that is fashionable today.

Exhibit of the exhibition "Print and Revolution". Photo: State Hermitage Museum

The Tretyakov Gallery dedicated several projects to the revolution. The main one is "Someone 1917" (until January 14) - a powerful exhibition, brought together by the efforts of not only Russian, but also foreign museums, including the Pompidou Center and the Tate Gallery. In the Tretyakov Gallery, they tried to maintain neutrality by combining works dating back to the revolutionary time. The result was an exhibition that could have been held in the early years of the revolution, which brings together fresh works created at that very moment.

Ivan Vladimirov. "Street fight on February 27" ("Siege of the Lithuanian castle"). Iskra magazine. 1917. Photo: State Hermitage

At the same time, the curators did not set out to show the struggle of artistic movements, although the temptation is great, given the real struggle between the avant-garde and traditionalists at that time. Rather, it is a panorama of feelings experienced by artists in a critical period: from delight and complete merging with the new time to apocalyptic moods. While Wassily Kandinsky depicted the disturbing "Troubled", Boris Grigoriev cut down the harsh truth of life by writing "The Old Cow-Where", and Boris Kustodiev - his fabulous "Bolshevik" marching across Russia. Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin writes peasants in the harsh revolutionary time, moving further and further along the path of idealization. Peasant Madonnas appear in his paintings “Two”, “Morning. Bathers", and "Noon" becomes an image of a peasant paradise. Zinaida Serebryakova is also moving towards the idealization of the peasantry, having painted in 1917 one of her masterpieces, Whitening the Canvas, where her Russian peasant women seem to have come out of the Italian Renaissance.

Women's death battalion, volunteers on the square in front of the Winter Palace on November 7, 1917. Photo: State Hermitage Museum

At the same time, avant-garde artists are beginning to take a leading position in the new art system that they are building on their own. Malevich, Rodchenko, Tatlin came to lead the new committees for culture and art. “Yesterday they were starving in the attics, and today the commissars of art,” wrote Rodchenko about that time. And although many of the radical accomplishments of the Russian avant-garde took place before the revolution, in 1917 the intensity of passions remained high.

Shooting of the film by Sergei Eisenstein "October" in the library of Nicholas II in the Winter Palace. 1927 Photo: RGALI

However, the program of the Tretyakov Gallery also includes an exhibition with a touch of sensation. Here, the completely non-socialist past of one of the most Soviet sculptors, the author of Leniniana, Nikolai Andreev, was brought to light. During his life, Andreev created 100 sculptural and 200 graphic portraits of Lenin, one of which adorned party cards of members of the CPSU (b). At the exhibition “Sculptor Andreev. Who were you before 1917? (until January 21) there are no Ilyichs at all, but 80 works of the pre-revolutionary period will be shown here, which reveal Andreev as an adherent of the “bourgeois” Art Nouveau style. Nothing foretold in the sculptor who sculpts ladies' portraits a la Vrubel, the author of the monument to Nikolai Gogol and the set designer of the Art Theater, the inventor of the canonical image of the leader of the revolution. The face of a real revolutionary can be seen close up at the exhibition in the same State Tretyakov Gallery “Wind of Revolution. Sculpture 1918-1932" (until January 14). It will show portraits of the main actors of the political upheaval and projects of monuments created as part of the monumental propaganda plan. However, the exposition is inspired by the collective image of "gone with the wind of the revolution", created by Vera Mukhina.

Mikhail Nesterov. "Philosophers". 1917. Photo: Tretyakov Gallery

As for the State Hermitage, it celebrates its anniversary throughout the year. As part of the grandiose project “Storming the Winter Palace”, the museum hosts exhibitions about “how it was”, in the real scenery of the palace, using the advantages of the genius of the place. Exhibitions dedicated to Alexander Kerensky's stay in the Winter Palace - in the library of Nicholas II, as well as the work of the Artistic Commission under the leadership of Vasily Vereshchagin - in the White Hall have already opened. There are several more projects in the pipeline. In the exposition “Print and Revolution. Editions of 1917-1922 in the funds of the State Hermitage” (October 26-January 14) will show more than 200 graphic and book rarities from the Hermitage storerooms, not only propaganda posters, but also rarities like Alexander Blok’s The Twelve with illustrations by Yuri Annenkov. Another exhibition is The Winter Palace and the Hermitage in 1917 (October 25 - February 4), which contains documents about the hottest point of the revolution, in particular about the history of the transformation of the imperial palace into a state museum. From the storerooms they will pull out into the light of God a witness to the coup - a portrait of Alexander II by Heinrich von Angeli, which the revolutionary sailors pierced with bayonets during the assault. The apotheosis of the Hermitage program will be a projection show in 3D mapping format: a grandiose video telling about the storming of the Winter Palace will be shown right on the walls of the palace.

Boris Grigoriev. "Old Milkmaid". From the cycle "Race". 1917. Photo: Tretyakov Gallery

In addition, the museums of Moscow and St. Petersburg are preparing monographic exhibitions of artists whose fate, artistic and personal, was greatly influenced by the revolution.

As many as four exhibitions have opened in the Russian Museum: "Poster of the era of the revolution" (until November 6), "Children of the Land of the Soviets" (until November 20), "Dreams of world prosperity" (until November 20), which brings together artists of the revolutionary era with their own vision of the future, and Art to Life. 1918-1925" about the revolutionary theme in arts and crafts (until November 20).

Pavel Kuznetsov. "Still Life with a Mirror". 1917. Photo: Tretyakov Gallery

The Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center has prepared an exhibition “To each in freedom? The history of one people during the years of the revolution ”(October 17 - January 14). The stories of witnesses and participants in the events of 1917-1919, including Leon Trotsky and Vera Inber, will be presented against the backdrop of paintings by Marc Chagall, Robert Falk, Issachar Ber Rybak and El Lissitzky from private collections. The last artist here and in the Tretyakov Gallery will devote a two-part project (November 16 - February 18). Although we hosted exhibitions by El Lissitzky, this will be the first such detailed retrospective of one of the most active heroes of the avant-garde, including about 400 works from both Russian and Western collections, and it will be held simultaneously on the territory of two museums. The Jewish Museum will show the early Lissitzky, in the Tretyakov Gallery - the artist at the zenith of his work.