Educational program for the exhibition "Francis Bacon, Lucien Freud and the London School"

Exhibition "Francis Bacon, Lucien Freud and the London School" will be held at the Pushkin Museum. A.S. Pushkin from March 5 to May 19. The project will introduce the Russian audience with a unique and most significant chapter in the history of contemporary British art related to the use by artists of figurative painting as a means of expressing a deeply personal, sensual and intense experience of life.

An educational program was developed specifically for the exhibition, the first event of which will be a lecture by curator Elena Krippa (Tate Gallery, London). Lectures will also be delivered by Danila Bulatov - curator of the project from the Pushkin Museum to them. BUT.. Pushkin, Catherine Lampert - curator, director of the Whitechapel Gallery (from 1988 to 2001), author of books about Frank Auerbach and Ewan Aglow, Alexandra Danilova - head of the department of art in Europe and America of the 19th – 20th centuries.

Within the framework of the “Fridays at Pushkinsky” festival, a series of discussions will be held on the London School of Painting: Art and Philosophy after the World War, prepared jointly with the curatorial agency Science. me. Specialists from various fields of knowledge - art, science, philosophy, culture - initiate a conversation about key aspects of the work of artists at the London School. The works of these artists have more than once become the objects of deep analysis, since they are concentrated manifestations of both personal tragic experience and collective upheaval. Discussions touched on a wide range of topics - from the experiences of the tragedy of the war to the connection of the work of artists of the London School with the philosophical and scientific concepts of contemporaries. Participants in the discussions will try to discover the deep meanings that served as the impetus for the creation of these simultaneously intriguing and terrifying paintings.

Entrance to the events of the educational program is by ticket to the museum. The program and schedule are available on the museum website.

Event program

Curatorial lecture “Artists and their subjects: immediate proximity”
March 5, 19:00, Main Building, Hall 29

The lecture is delivered by Helen Crippa, curator of contemporary British art at the Tate Gallery. Thanks to Helena Crippa, important international exhibitions were held such as The London Calls at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles and Too Human: Bacon, Freud, and the Age of Art Life in the Tate Gallery.

In his lecture, Elena Crippa will talk about the relationships that the artists represented at the exhibition were connected with. Why does the exhibition begin with the works of William Coldstream, David Bomberg and Francis Bacon, and who is depicted in their works? Who of the artists was influenced by the masters of the past and in whose works to look for references to the works of Diego Velazquez, Edgar Degas, Paul Cezanne and Pablo Picasso? And also, which of the representatives of the London school admired and collected the art of colleagues and collected works by David Hockney? In the final part of the lecture, the curator will turn to the figure of Lucien Freud, sources of inspiration of the artist and dwell on how his work has changed over the course of almost seven decades.

Lecture “The London School and the End of an Ordered Era”
March 13, 19:00, Main Building, Hall 29

The lecture is delivered by Danila Bulatov, curator of the exhibition, researcher at the Art Department of Europe and America of the XIX-XX centuries.

Lecture “Artists of the London School in Dialogue with Classical Art”
March 20, 19:00, Main Building, Hall 29

The lecture is delivered by Danila Bulatov, curator of the exhibition, researcher at the Art Department of Europe and America of the XIX-XX centuries.

Discussion "London School and the Old Masters"
March 22, 18:00, Main Building, Hall 29

The London school is an ambiguous phenomenon in the art world: on the one hand, its representatives are reformers who were in search of new expressive means, and on the other hand, artists who turned to realism. Contrary to the dominance after the Second World War of various currents of abstractionism, Londoners created an absolutely human world - bodily and sensual. This program combines them with old masters. They called themselves students of classical artists: Lucien Freud considered the Northern Renaissance to be the most important period in the history of art, and called themselves the successor to Albrecht Durer, the father of the self-portrait genre; Frank Auerbach spoke about the influence of almost all old masters on his work. The discussion will discuss the general trends of the old and new traditions, and those starting points when modern artists began to move away from the classics.

Participants: Viktor Yerofeyev (writer, literary critic, radio and television presenter), Danila Bulatov (curator, researcher at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, art historian), Nadezhda Prokazina (teacher at the HSE School of Historical Sciences, art critic, Western scholar art), Ekaterina Kochetkova (Ph.D., senior lecturer in the history department of Moscow State University named after MV Lomonosov).

Discussion "London School: figurative art as a new abstraction"
March 29, 18:00, Main building, exhibition exposition

In the first half of the 20th century, art basically abandons its representativeness. The art world is filled with "theory", moving away from spatial clarity and historicity: art seeks to reflect the idea of art. But the crises that humanity is facing make it urgent to return to reality. Artists at the London School have made this turn, but although their art is figurative, it is far from a realistic tradition. They sought to convey the most direct experience of life. To do this, often resorted to the technique of impasto (applying a thick layer of paint on the canvas), which was supposed to contribute to the connection of the space of the picture with the real world, strengthening the material aspects of painting. At the same time, this approach implied a high level of abstraction, since the artist did not aim to imitate the reality of the visible world on the canvas, but sought to strengthen the “sense of reality”.

Participants: Ilona Lebedeva (Ph.D. in art, researcher at the Department of Contemporary Western Art at the State Institute of Art Studies, member of the Association of Art Critics and the Association of Culture Managers), Sergey Dzikevich (Ph.D., assistant professor of aesthetics, Faculty of Philosophy, Moscow State University named after MV Lomonosov), Kirill Svetlyakov (Ph.D. in art history, laureate of the Sergey Kuryokhin Prize, is included in the list of the most influential people in Russian art according to the editions of Artchronika, Artguide, The Artnewspaper Russia ”), Victoria Vasilieva (Ph.D., Associate Professor, Faculty of Humanities, School of Cultural Studies, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Specialist in Media, Mass Culture and Audiovisual Methods in the Cultural Sciences).

Discussion "London School: The Crisis of Evil"
April 5, 18:00, Main building, exhibition exposition

Traditionally, the understanding of good and evil belongs to the field of ethics; ideas about these categories have changed at different times. Ethical ideas concerned very abstract concepts, such as duty, principle, will, sometimes the universe was conceptualized through ethical laws. Ethics has always addressed man as a creature capable of acting in accordance with idealistic principles. The twentieth century made people face the fact that all formed ethical and religious ideas about good and evil no longer work. This was the result of the tragedy of war, the monstrous crimes of Nazism, the physical suffering of people - the human body turned out to be a political field, where violence reached its limit. The investigation of the Nazi medical experiments as part of the Nuremberg trials gave rise to a new, more applied idea of ethics: medical ethics and bioethics appeared. As part of the discussion, an attempt will be made to comprehend the work of the artists of the London School through the prism of ethical problems of the 20th century.

Participants: Boris Kashnikov (Doctor of Philosophy, professor of the Faculty of Humanities, National Research University Higher School of Economics), Danila Bulatov (curator, researcher at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, art historian), Oleg Aronson (Ph.D., senior researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences), senior researcher at the Institute of Russian Anthropological School, as well as the Russian Institute of Cultural Studies, art critic), Alexandra Moskovskaya (Ph.D., researcher at the aesthetics sector at the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences).

Lecture "Living Essence"
April 10, 19:00, Main Building, Hall 29

The lecture is delivered by Katherine Lampert, independent curator, art critic.

“Existence precedes essence” - this is how Jean-Paul Sartre formulated an existentialist position, which was based on the artists whose work was presented at the exhibition “Francis Bacon, Lucien Freud and the London School”.

Katherine Lampert will be based on her own experience in creating exhibitions, writing articles, and in person with London artists such as Francis Bacon, Leon Kossoff, Frank Auerbach, Lucien Freud, William Coldstream, Michael Andrews, Paula Reglu, Ewan Aglow and Paul will also talk about several followers, including Georg Baselitz.

Katherine Lampert, an independent art curator, worked at the Hayward Gallery in London from 1988 to 2001. was the director of the Whitechapel Gallery. The author of books and articles about Ewan Aglow, Frank Auerbach, Peter Doig, George Shaw, Francis Alice and others. Today, Catherine Lampert is a member of the scientific council of the Rodin Museum, is working on the Paula Regu exhibition, which opens in June 2019, and compiles a catalog of paintings by Lucien Freud.

Discussion "Death of God" and Christian images
April 12, 18:00, Main Building, 29th Hall

One of the traditional religious topics discussed is the difficulty of explaining the existence of evil in a world ruled by a good God - the problem of theodicy. Proclaimed in the 20th century by Nietzsche’s idea of “the death of God”, it encompasses the idea that old moral principles, the source of which is a certain higher being, God, are dying. With the death of God, man affirms reality - says “yes” to life. At the same time, being loses the reliability that the presence of God gives. The events that took place during the life of the artists of the London School - wars, revolutions, scientific discoveries, economic crises - demonstrate the fragility of well-being and rationality of life. In art after the Second World War, there are often images borrowed from Christian iconography, but they inevitably acquire a secular, even nihilistic, character. The discussion will reveal the possibilities of understanding the work of the artists of the London School in the context of the “dehydration” of the world and a new look at Christian doctrines.

Participants: Lidia Chakovskaya (Ph.D., senior researcher at the State Institute of Art Studies and the Department of History and Theory of World Culture of the Philosophy Faculty of Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov, art critic), Alexei Rastorguev (Ph.D. in art history, assistant professor of the department of general history of historical arts Faculty of Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov, specializes in the art of late antiquity, the art of the West European Middle Ages, the Byzantine and post-Byzantine icon, the history of Christian iconography and the art of the Northern Renaissance, the art of the 20th century), Julia Sineokaya (Doctor of Philosophy, Professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Head of the Department of Western Philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Specialist in the History of European and Russian Philosophy of the Second Half of the 19th – 20th Centuries), Anna Pozhidaeva (Candidate of Art History, Associate Professor of the Faculty of Humanities, National Research University Higher School of Economics, specialist in medieval Western European art, Christian iconography and reception of mythological subjects in world art).

Discussion "Body without organs: philosophy and post-war art"
April 19, 18:00, Main Building, 29th Hall

“Body without organs” - a philosophical concept introduced by Antonin Artaud and elaborated in detail by Gilles Deleuze, became the key to the development of subsequent trends in painting, dance, theater and cinema. Its essence lies in the fact that a body without organs is opposed to an organized body, it is “flesh and nerves”. Exploring the work of Bacon, Deleuze writes about the artist’s depiction of the "intense fact of the body." This principle turned out to be extremely important for the artists of the London school, who were faced with the reality of post-war Europe, where reality was felt in the whole gamut of physical impressions: a reality that was not hidden behind the views of comfortable cities, tables full of food in houses and expensive clothes - a pure being, directly revealed to the artist. The “body without organs” as the principle of thinking and vision is the most suitable for conveying the tension of life, and the representatives of the London school try to force the viewer to make himself a “body without organs”, learn to perceive nerve endings at the level of work, so that life is freed from “organization "And comes to the assertion of its authenticity.

Participants: Svetlana Polyakova (Ph.D., associate professor of the Department of Ontology, Theory of Knowledge, Faculty of Philosophy, Moscow State University named after MV Lomonosov, ontologist, specialist in contemporary art and Theosophy), Chaim Sokol (artist, sculptor, art columnist, author of installations, performances, texts), Anna Yampolskaya (Doctor of Philosophy, Leading Researcher at the Center for Fundamental Sociology, National Research University Higher School of Economics, specialist in French and German phenomenology).

Lecture "Painting with and without comments: R. B. China and British pop art"
May 15, 19:00, Main Building, Hall 29

The idea of creating a "new art" was picked up by young British artists, students of the Royal College of London: R. B. China, Peter Blake, Joe Tilson, Richard Smith, Derek Boschier, David Hockney, Allen Jones, Peter Philipps, who announced his student exhibition " Young Contemporaries ”in February 1961. It was these artists that made up the core of British pop art, embodying its main principles in their work. Two worlds - "high art" and mass culture - coexist on their canvases on equal terms, as part of a single whole. Advertising, comics, the Americanized culture of the middle class for most English pop artists is primarily a source of modern imagery. Their works are filled with quotes and artistic parallels.

The lecture is delivered by Alexandra Danilova, head of the art department of the countries of Europe and America of the XIX-XX centuries.

Discussion “London School and Poetry. Art after Auschwitz ”
May 18, 20:00, Main Building, 29th Hall

The phrase by the German philosopher Theodor Adorno, “after Auschwitz, any word in which lofty notes are heard is deprived of the right to exist” became a sentence for all art that could be created after the Holocaust. Any words that appeal to the transcendental are compromised by the fact that they once led to Auschwitz. When such exalted thinking is combined with real experience, it costs nothing to exterminate entire nations in the name of a “lofty idea”. Poetry and painting are genres that more often than others call for meanings that are higher than human material reality. But how possible are they at a time when such a worldview still smells like carrion? The London school is a product of this attitude, which becomes an impulse for creating new forms and expressive means, provided that the destructiveness of the old understanding of art is recognized. In the framework of the conversation about post-war painting and poetry, it will become possible to understand how art overcame the crisis of representation caused by the bloody pages of human history.

Participants: Yuri Saprykin (journalist, culturologist, radio host, project manager of the “Shelf” project), Ksenia Golubovich (candidate of philological sciences, chairman of the jury of the A. Pyatigorsky literary prize, writer, translator, literary critic), Alexandra Volodina (teacher of the “Contemporary Art” program”At the Higher School of Economics, Research Fellow at the Aesthetics Sector, Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Cultural Studies

Discussion "London School: existential horror and the experience of war"
May 19, 20:00, Main Building, Hall 29

The existential experience of horror is one of the sources of the artistic language of the masters of the London School. War is an event that can be described as an endless sensation of death. People immersed in such a state are able to detect the refractions of life that cannot be seen in peacetime - paradoxically, as they sound, they begin to truly live. Despite the fact that war demoralizes a person, it is a “borderline situation” (this is a term from the philosophy of existentialism, which refers to the moment at which a person realizes his true existence - existence). Искусство Лондонской школы пропитано этим потрясением от открывшейся алогичности и неупорядоченности мира. Приемы, которые используют художники, позволяют делать ощутимым страх человека, вызванный чувством слитности с этим миром и одновременно ужасом пребывания в нем. В связи с этим большинство из этих мастеров обращается к изображению плоти – самой первичной зоны человеческого опыта, в которой человек утверждает себя. Жан-Поль Сартр писал: “Моё тело из плоти, плоть живет, плоть копошится, она тихо вращает соки, кремы, эта плоть вращает, вращает мягкую сладкую влагу моей плоти, кровь моей руки, сладкая боль в моей раненой плоти, которую вращают, она идет, я иду, я спасаюсь бегством, я негодяй с израненной плотью, израненный существованием об эти стены”. Плоть становится точкой, где страх, ужас и война переплетаются в единство собственного переживания.

Участники: Глеб Напреенко (искусствовед, психоаналитик лакановской ориентации, теоретик искусства), Валентин Дьяконов (кандидат культурологии, искусствовед, арт-критик), Алина Стрельцова (кандидат искусствоведения, преподаватель факультета журналистики МГУ им. М. В. Ломоносова, заместитель главного редактора журнала “Искусство”, журналист).