Dmitry Tugarinov. Exhibition dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the master

February 16, 2016 at 16. 00 in the halls of the Russian Academy of Arts at the address: st. Prechistenka, house 21, an exhibition of sculptural works of the Honored Artist of Russia, Academician of the Russian Academy of Arts Dmitry Nikitovich Tugarinov, dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the master, will open.

The exposition included about 300 sculptural works of different years.

D.N. Tugarinov was born on February 5, 1955 in Moscow. In 1979 he graduated from Moscow State Art Institute named after V.I. Surikov (workshop of M.F. Baburin and N.V. Tomsky). Laureate of the Moscow Komsomol Prize, the Paris Salon Prize, Grand Prix winner at the international competition "Portrait of a Contemporary" in Prague, holder of the Order of St. Anne III degree, participant of the Quadrennial of Contemporary Art in France in 2014. He was awarded the gold medal of the Russian Academy of Arts.

Dmitry Nikitovich Tugarinov is a legendary character, now occupying a special place in the Russian sculpture school. He is called "Gogol in sculpture." Like the great writer, Tugarinov’s works are distinguished by an extremely modern spectrum of images, although they also guess traditional features familiar to everyone. He himself and his work exist in a certain mythological space, reflecting a special world full of extravagance and eternal irony.

In each of the works, the artist searches for the sharp character of the image, often sharpening it to the grotesque. Behind an unexpected, unpredictable form filled with plastic paradoxes, the authenticity of the real life of his characters is palpable. In their strange, unusual actions, an irresistible desire manifests itself to change the usual order of things.

Many of Tugarinov’s works have no specific plot; he expresses his attitude to phenomena and events through subtext and metaphor. The artist often takes as a basis for composition a well-known parable or fairy tale, the meaning of which is read in the context of modern problems. “Once upon a time there was a king”, “The Golden Cockerel” - his compositions evoke various associations with our life today, humor turns into irony, sarcasm, acquires a grotesque sound. Tugarinov’s plastic paradoxes excite the viewer, destroying the inertia of indifferent contemplation.

For all his creative practice Tugarinov created more than six hundred easel and monumental works. However, in the halls of the Russian Academy of Arts only the main works of the sculptor will be exhibited.

The exposition is conceptually divided into ten rooms, each of which is dedicated to a specific topic. In the first hall of the exhibition guests will be greeted by the famous work “Shoes” - a little girl in her mother’s shoes walking in an improvised dump of sculptures.

A special place in the exposition is occupied by the artist’s works dedicated to the image of the great Russian commander Alexander Suvorov.

Dmitry Tugarinov is the only sculptor in the history of Switzerland who managed to install two sculptures Suvorov high in the Alps at the St. Gotthard pass - at the place where his victorious army crossed in the war with the Napoleonic troops and in the city of Elm, opposite the house where the commander stayed for the night. At the same time, in Switzerland, by law, it is forbidden to put monuments to the military and foreigners. Be that as it may, the opening of its monuments and the associated anniversaries in the Alps today take place in the presence of a large number of visitors.

Unusually plastic solution to the first monument. The sculptural composition is set directly in the mountain landscape, on a rock, without a pedestal. The artist depicts this great man at the time of the highest mental and physical stress. The monument caused an ambiguous reaction, perhaps because it did not resemble the usual, textbook image of a commander.

“But I wanted to show not so much the military genius of Suvorov, but his everyday human features. This is my vision, by the way, based on documentary material, ”says the artist.

According to many, this is a key work in the creative biography of D. Tugarinov.

The exhibition presents works made in different materials: bronze, stone, marble, porcelain, fireclay, wood. Small plastic is striking in the variety of plastic forms: a nude model, allegorical plots, genre scenes - a whole kaleidoscope of movements, situations, game moments. The sculptor creates dozens of variants of the same plastic theme, seeking the most acute expression of his plan.

The Seventh Hall will always be devoted to the theme of the Fifth Column.

The final hall of the exposition - Birch Grove - is a kind of meditation pavilion where visitors can, in the pleasant surroundings of Tugarinov’s sculptural works, comprehend his amazing work.

D. Tugarinov actively works both in easel and in monumental sculpture. For the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, he performed two figures - the equally apostolic emperor Constantine the Great and his mother, Queen Helena. A monument to its founder, Friedrich Falz-Fein, was erected in the famous Askania Nova Nature Reserve.

The artist’s works are in the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Russian Museum, the Museum of A. S. Pushkin, museums and private collections in Russia and abroad.

In one of the exhibition halls, the works of Dmitry Tugarinov’s wife - Athena Georgievna Popandopulo - ceramic portrait cartoons will be exhibited. For about 30 years, Popandopulo and Tugarinov have been working in the same workshop, but this does not prevent any of them from creating their own artistic world.