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- On the way of Chagall: the exhibition at the State Museum of Fine Arts focuses on the artist's early work
On the way of Chagall: the exhibition at the State Museum of Fine Arts focuses on the artist's early work
Cellos and French horns hanging from the ceiling, the reconstruction of the artist's room and the Jewish Theater in miniature — all this can be seen at the exhibition "Marc Chagall. The Joy of Gravity" is perhaps the main project of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in the past year. Opened with due pathos (among the first guests is the Minister of Culture Olga Lyubimova) and claiming to be a blockbuster, this project inevitably provokes parallels with the legendary exposition of the same museum in 1987, one of Irina Antonova's high—profile achievements as director. However, after walking through the halls, Izvestia became convinced that there was not much point in this comparison. They're too different.
We walked from the Chagall
When talking about the history of the State Museum of Fine Arts, they always mention several exhibitions from the period of Irina Antonova's directorship, which have formed a special reputation for both the museum itself and its head. The sensational arrival of "Gioconda" in 1974, "Moscow - Paris" (1981) as a harbinger of perestroika. In the same row is the anniversary retrospective of Marc Chagall: no longer a harbinger, but a clear evidence of the changes taking place in the country. What could not have been shown before became possible at that moment, and Antonova was one of the first to feel it.
Not only was Chagall an avant-garde artist, but he was also an emigrant and the author of a large number of religious works. But in 1987, all this did not become an obstacle. But it attracted the most attention. As a result, there are huge queues and no less resonance in the cultural environment.
It is difficult to repeat such success today. Firstly, the avant—garde is no longer a "forbidden fruit" in the eyes of the modern viewer, but a familiar part of the exhibition landscape. High-profile retrospectives are coming one after another. Secondly, it is now impossible to show Chagall's work as voluminously as in 1987, and not at all because of ideology. Since most of the master's life was spent in France, a significant part of the legacy remained abroad and for obvious reasons cannot be brought to us.
How to get out of this situation? How to attract a modern audience, given that the selection of works is relatively small? Curator Evgenia Petrova (for many years she headed the scientific activities of the Russian Museum, and today she directs its publishing programs) relied on direct emotions and a "wow effect", turning the main exhibition space of the main building of the State Museum of Fine Arts into a total installation.
Flying tools
Already on the stairs, a surprise awaits the viewer: raising his head, he will see musical instruments hanging over him, as if levitating. Cellos, violins, French horns… This is a reference to Chagall's favorite subject — since the Vitebsk times, he has repeatedly painted wandering musicians. And at the same time, the motif of floating in zero gravity brings us to the famous "Walk" from the timing belt.: it towers over the entrance to the White Hall, turning out to be the epigraph to the entire narrative.
The solution, needless to say, is vivid. Although, admittedly, it is impossible to view a masterpiece at such a height. But the exhibition as a whole is not so much for "academically minded" visitors as for those who want to immerse themselves in the bizarre, eccentric, slightly naive world of Chagall. No wonder the two main spaces here are an imitation of the hall of the Jewish Chamber Theater (the artist painted huge panels for its decoration, which later ended up in the Tretyakov Gallery) and the reconstruction of the Chagall family room — with authentic furniture donated by the artist's niece, and "video windows" behind which life unfolds.
To provide Pushkin with seven decorative panels from 1920, as well as the super hit "Over the City", is a valuable, by no means an ordinary gesture on the part of the State Tretyakov Gallery. But there is one caveat worth considering. All this was and will be available in the permanent exhibition of the New Tretyakov Gallery, in the Chagall Hall (and for now, the masterpieces of Picasso and Matisse will take their place there — a return curtsy from the State Museum of Fine Arts). So you can't call things from the Crimean Wave an "exclusive" exhibition. But does the general public know about it? Hardly. How can we not remember the notorious "queue for Serov" — a lot of people stood in it to see the "Girl with peaches", and so did not leave the gallery.
He's Russian
Although it would be unfair to accuse Evgenia Petrova and the State Museum of Fine Arts of a purely marketing trick — to sell something that is already always affordable. The exhibition features items from private collections and regional museums, and a lot of graphics, including completely unexpected ones, hardly associated with Chagall. For example, stunning drawings from the beginning of the First World War: an infrequent example of pure expressionism in the art of the Russian avant-garde. For them, the space above the stairs was "dressed" in black, very gloomy decorations — and this emphasized the tragedy of the works, filled with pain and fracture, awareness of the collapse of that cozy provincial world that Chagall glorified in his pre-war works.
The architectural solution in this case also plays another function: to compensate for the modest format of the sheets, so that the viewer does not have a feeling of poverty of exposure, gaping voids. The same applies to the suite along the stairs, where a relatively small number of medium- or small-sized exhibits are placed in separate semicircular niches, and this "frame" turns out to be much larger than the "diamonds" themselves (in addition, each item is complemented by a detailed description).
The new retrospective is an example of museum ingenuity: to do the seemingly impossible in the current conditions. To turn a beautiful but potentially chamber story focused on one creative period of the artist into a large-scale "performance". The exhibition is really very theatrical, and not only because its central space is occupied by an imitation of a theater (there is even a stage: there is a grand piano on it). More importantly, she appeals not to art criticism, although connoisseurs have a lot to see here — just less than they would like — but to spontaneous feelings.
The connection of the times
We go up the stairs — "wow!". We see a "Walk" under the ceiling — "that's it, that's it!". We look into the artist's room, built in the original size — "wow!". We get into the war room — it gives us the creeps... And if so, is it so important what is missing here and what is there (portraits of relatives and acquaintances, images of Vitebsk streets and plots of provincial life, illustrations to Gogol's "Dead Souls" and Jewish books ...)?
Chagall is not the rarest artist. If desired, it would be possible to densely fill much larger spaces with its printed graphics from a foreign period, since there are a lot of them in Russia. But the exhibition has other objectives. Moving away from academic dryness and the pursuit of quantity, she highlights the spontaneity, naivety and sincerity that exist in this art for all its avant-garde sophistication and craftsmanship. And it shows what images, life "decorations", and impressions this huge creative world has grown out of. After all, as you know, we all come from childhood.
Time will tell whether the "Joy of Gravity" will be the same for the head of the State Museum of Fine Arts Olga Galaktionova as the retrospective of 1987 for Irina Antonova. But tickets for the first few days are no longer on sale: queues are forming again, only virtual ones. And one of the exhibits of the new exhibition recalls the museum's friendship with Chagall and the role of the most famous director in this relationship: a book with a donation inscription by the artist Antonova. So the times change, but the connection of the times remains.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
