"In my opinion" by Dmitry Tugarinov

The Russian Academy of Arts presents an exhibition of works by People’s Artist of the Russian Federation and Academician of the Russian Academy of Arts Dmitry Nikitovich Tugarinov, dedicated to the author’s 70th anniversary. The chamber academic halls will display works created by him over the past ten years, most of which are being shown for the first time.

The sculptor’s work is distinguished by its enviable diversity. One of the key themes for the artist is the study of mythological and fairy-tale motifs, as well as an appeal to historical images, which he interprets with his characteristic irony. Among the new exhibits is the impressive "Sirin Bird", which significantly develops and enriches the plastic idea, originally realized in the work in Belgium in 1990; the monument "Ouroboros" - in the artist’s interpretation, a symbolic snake compressed to the limit, laconically closed in its volume, not just biting, but greedily swallowing its own tail.

In contrast, the famous heroes of I. A. Krylov’s fable "The Swan, the Crayfish, and the Pike" crown with their spiral trio a rather open-to-space composition of a hopelessly broken cart, replete with seemingly chaotic and seemingly picked up from a dump details. D. N. Tugarikov is closely related to mythical, epic, and legendary characters, since, according to the author, he is "a descendant of the Polovtsian Khan Tugarkhan from the Sharukan (Snake) clan, who became the prototype of the fairy-tale Serpent Gorynych."

It is not surprising that the ironic vertical sculpture with self-portrait features "Tugaryn Snake" occupies a significant place at the exhibition. However, traditional, at first glance, portraits are also present - Tugarinov’s fellow artists in the sculpture workshop with their accentuated characteristic plasticity: Alexander Rukavishnikov, Lev Meshcheryakov, Nikolai Mukhin, Athena Popandopulo and others.

D. N. Tugarinov’s special pride is a series of two-meter bronze figures of young athletes (gymnasts, fencers, riders and others), of which there are exactly twelve - six boys and the same number of girls. The sculptures themselves are installed in the park of the Moscow region resort "Pirogovo", where thematically they refer the viewer to both ancient Olympic athletes and to the garden and park sculpture of pioneers. The exhibition includes their reduced models and large photographs taken by the photo artist Valery Yakovlev. Consciously choosing sports with a minimum number of attributes and skillfully varying the plasticity of the naked and dressed body, the master, on the one hand, demonstrates that he always honors the traditions of the craft, and on the other, ironically modernizes established forms and is nostalgic for the bygone Soviet era, thereby clearly asserting that his "natural state is between the old and the new."

The “integral creative method” inherent to Tugarikov (according to the apt expression of art critic Grigory Klimovitsky) is strongly influenced by the natural temperament of the master, who speaks frankly about himself: “I am not myself without jokes, without humor. In general, I am a cheerful person.” He is not only a cheerful sculptor, often inclined to an ironic realistic narrative, he is also a caustic artist with a sparkling imagination, who has an expressive opinion of his own on every occasion. It is precisely such mysterious things that cannot be finally “deciphered” - and it does not matter: monumental or intimate, funny or serious, laconic or verbose - that make up the unique cross-section of this exhibition.

The text was prepared by the Information Department (press service) of the Russian Academy of Arts based on an article by art historian Elena Gribonosova-Grebneva.

Reference

Dmitry Nikitovich Tugarikov was born in 1955 in Moscow. In 1979 he graduated from the Moscow State Academic Art Institute named after V. I. Surikov, the sculpture workshop of professors M. F. Baburin and N. V. Tomsky. Since 2005 he has been a professor of the sculpture department of his institute.

The creator of the monuments to Generalissimo A. V. Suvorov (1999, St. Gotthard Pass, Switzerland), Generalissimo A. V. Suvorov (2001, Panix Pass, Switzerland), the founder of the Askania-Nova Nature Reserve (Ukraine) Friedrich Falz-Fein (2008-2009, Askania-Nova Nature Reserve, Ukraine), Duke Friedrich Ferdinand of Anhalt-Köthen (2012, Askania-Nova, Ukraine); the monumental sculptural composition "Ascension" (1997, Muzeon Park, Moscow); high relief "Blacksmith and Carpenter" (2014, museum-estate of the Hero of the Patriotic War of 1812, General I.S. Voronin, Yaroslavl region); recreated the compositions "Queen Elena", "Emperor Constantine" for the sculptural decoration of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow (1994 - 1999) and other works.

Participant of numerous exhibitions in Russia and abroad since 1975. The sculptor’s works are in many collections of Russian museums: the State Tretyakov Gallery, the A.S. Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, the State Russian Museum, as well as in private collections in Russia, Switzerland, Belgium and other countries.