Exhibition "Improvisation on a Theme ..."

On May 12, 2018, the exhibition “Improvisation on the theme…” opens at the ARTPLAY Design Center, the first of the series of exhibitions of the new EAST MEETS WEST GALLERY project for 2018-2019. under the general title "Music is everywhere."

It is based on the work on the sketches during a joint listening and emotional experience of the Alpine Symphony by Richard Strauss at a workshop for artists at the ARTPLAY Design Center in December 2017. Many artists performed easel and graphic works from these sketches, which will be presented at the exhibition in May. Some authors chose other classical musical works for inspiration and wrote their improvisations in workshops. The main goal was achieved: works of fine art were created on the topics of specific musical works. This is the most difficult task and there are not many examples of creating such works.

The connection of visual arts and music can be traced back to ancient times. On ancient frescoes and vases, on ancient Roman bas-reliefs depicted scenes of public concerts, musical instruments, and later painted on canvases portraits of musicians, composers, scenes of opera and musical performances that reflected many aspects of the musical culture of their time.

In the works of different types of art and music of the same era, similar processes often arise that are generated by a single spiritual atmosphere, for example, there is a close connection between “… the romantic imaginative world of Delacroix and Berlioz, between the painting of the Impressionists and the work of Debussy. Analogies are equally natural in Russian culture, for example, between Tropinin’s paintings and Russian everyday romance; between the songs of Dargomyzhsky, Mussorgsky - and the works of Fedotov, Perov ”(V.V. Vanslov“ On music and ballet ”).

Not so often you can find works of painting written under the strong emotional influence of musical works, where we are not talking about plot similarities or parallels, but about the “musicality” of painting. It is mainly expressed in the color and rhythm of a work of art. Here, color, light, line and shape in themselves have great expressiveness. And if they are even more emotionally enhanced under the influence of music, they say “… about singing lines, about light keys, about excited rhythms, about colorful chords, about melodic color…” (V.V. Vantslov).

The project involves: Rivka Belareva, Umit Beck, Vasily Vlasov, Natalya Georgadze, Konstantin Inal-Ipa, Ekaterina Kudryavtseva, Vladimir Kurdyukov, Andrey Korovin, Alexey Lantsev, Vladimir Pankratov, Gennady Troshkov.

Rivka Belareva associates part of Strauss’s symphony “Thunderstorm and Storm, Descent” with the “Tower”, which symbolizes, in her opinion, “… not a literal overthrow of religion, but rather the collapse of old ideas and the advent of new ones, a paradigm shift.” She interpreted Richard Strauss’s musical language in this way: “Strauss has mountains not an arbitrary form of relief and not a subject of geography, but that endless cosmic void against which human tragedy unfolds. After all, it is a person who is in the center of the symphony, but not only his physical movement and journey, but also his inner path, formation. ”

According to Vasily Vlasov, painting is like a music box, "… in which the initial elements of associative expressions are collected." In his paintings and graphic works, he tries in visual images “… to find musical forms and include them in the visual plane of the painting. Create an appropriate space and a picturesque figurative environment ”(V. Vlasov).

Vladimir Kurdyukov was a participant in the seminar on December 23, 2017 that we organized to jointly listen to the “Alpine Symphony” at the ARTPLAY Design Center. His sudden departure from life did not allow him to turn beautiful sketches into large finished works. In memory of a friend and comrade and with the permission of his son, the exhibition will show his early work Fantasy to Scriabin (Poem of Ecstasy), 2008 and sketches made in December 2017. Comparing these abstract works, which a decade shares, we see the continuity of the creative style of the author, his mastery of all the tools of post-impressionism, the richness of the heritage of abstract art and a subtle understanding of the "musicality" of painting.

Konstantin Inal-Ipa participates in exhibitions EAST MEETS WEST GALLERY for the first time. His work is not directly related to music. He did not participate in the seminar, he did not write improvisations with the others on the theme of “Alpine Symphony”, but it is amazing how such works as “Recent” turned out to be in tune with parts from R. Strauss’s symphony on intonation, color, stylistic orientation (abstract expressionism) flowers on earth ”,“ Twilight ”and“ Morning ”.

Andrei Korovin presented authorial subjective comments on five paintings on the theme of music "Alpine Symphony" by Richard Strauss. Here is the first of them about sunrise: “From the absolute darkness and silence the first sparks of light break through - pure timid sounds. Their strength is growing in waves. As if a born soul for the first time breathes the energy of life. And now - the joy of the soul sounds deafening! The leading melody of the symphony spreads its wings and, rejoicing, soars in the rays of the rising sun… "

In the musical culmination of R. Strauss “At the top. Vision ”Korovin splashed out a powerful beam of bright multi-colored solar lines that connect in the compositional center, symbolizing the victory of man and his glee. “The pipes are playing louder! The soul takes off into the sky with a powerful stream of music and connects with the Divine energy! ”(A. Korovin).

In his two new works “Red Dance” and “Flicker”, Gennady Troshkov seems to be moving away from rigid technological constructions. His world is a new, light, changing, plasma and molecular space. It “dances” and “sounds” a new lyrical melody of the author, which gives hope for a brighter tomorrow.

The relationship between art and music is multifaceted and diverse: in addition to the plot embodiment of images of art in music and music in art, it is also customary to talk about the mutual influence of their artistic and formal features, that is, the “picturesqueness” of music and the “musicality” of painting.

Curator Tatyana Paleeva

The exhibition runs at the ARTPLEI Design Center from May 12 to June 12, 2018.

st. Nizhnyaya Syromyatnicheskaya, 10, p. 3, floor 2