Exhibition "Between the Volga and the Danube"

The international academic research project “Between the Volga and the Danube” is dedicated to one of the outstanding founders of the European education of the seventeenth century, Jan Amos Comenius.

Organizers: Russian Academy of Arts, Volga branch of the Russian Academy of Arts, Creative Union of Artists of Russia, European Center for Fine Arts (Bratislava, Slovakia) with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, CSI M * ARS, partners in Europe: Aircraft Diagnostic Company, Slovenska Vytvarna Unia, Slovak Union of visual art.

In Saratov, the exhibition is displayed with the support of the Ministry of Culture of Russia and the Ministry of Culture of the Saratov Region at two sites: in the halls of the Saratov State Art Museum named after A.N. Radishchev and the Saratov Art College named after A.P. Bogolyubov.

May 5, 2016 at 17.00 in the halls of the Radishchevsky Museum (Pervomaiskaya 75), a presentation of the 1st part of the exhibition project “Between the Volga and the Danube” is planned. A round table and presentation of the 2nd part of the exposition in the exhibition hall of the Bogolyubovsky School (59 Universitetskaya) will be held on May 6 at 3 p.m.

The project is carried out with the participation of Russian and foreign artists.

The works of Russian artists from Moscow, St. Petersburg, the Volga region (Saratov, Kazan, Samara, Ulyanovsk, Izhevsk, Cheboksary, Ufa), Yaroslavl, Ivanov and Chelyabinsk - only 12 regions of Russia are presented. Foreign participants in the project are artists from Central and Eastern Europe (the territory on which the great humanist Jan Amos Komensky lived and formed the foundations of European enlightenment): Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Austria, Germany, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, Poland, Ukraine and Moldova - 10 European countries. In addition, the project partner, the Center for Contemporary Art M * ARS (Moscow), provided from its collection part of the work of Eastern European artists. In total, more than 150 Russian and foreign artists from 300 who sent applications for the competition passed the selection. Presented are the types of fine art: painting, graphics, sculpture, digital and applied art.

The organizers of the research project “BETWEEN THE VOLGA AND THE THOUGHT”, following the methodology of Jan Amos Komensky, the author of the famous encyclopedia-textbook “The World of Sensual Things in Pictures”, set the task for modern artists: to reflect the world of nature and public relations through their creative works

in order to obtain diverse and invaluable artistic revelations and points of view on the same objects. The project is an attempt to at least partially restore a holistic perception of the world around a person. Artists were asked to reflect in their work 100 contemporary topics that were relevant to their work: 100 works were created by Russian artists and foreign ones were created on the same 100 topics.

In the format of the project, a competition took place, an art encyclopedia was published, a traveling international exhibition was organized in Moscow (Zurab Tsereteli RAX Art Gallery, August-September 2015), Bratislava (European Center for Fine Arts, November 2015-March 2016), Saratov (Radishchev Museum - SCU named after A.P. Bogolyubov, April-May 2016), master classes in painting and digital art, round tables.

This project, among other tasks, shows the vectors of the development of art

in different countries and generations. So, in Hungary the school of realistic drawing is quite successfully preserved. In Serbia, “naive” is popular and iconography is developing, in a sense. In Slovakia, artists in a peculiar way, using elements of realism, work mainly in abstraction. Poland and the Czech Republic continue to use their traditional critical attitude to reality and some poster style. In general, the project “Between the Volga and the Danube” covers the former territory of the Soviet Union and its zones of influence, but the largest number of works is presented from three countries - Russia, Austria and Ukraine. Austrian artists work in easel painting and graphics, with new technologies and genres, but the most interesting is their thematic perspective - a love of travel and other cultures. Two of the artists present projects made in Russia: in Siberia and Samara, at the Shiryaev Biennale. Important for the organizers seems to be cooperation with Ukrainian artists. Art has always been one of the most effective forms of diplomacy. This is especially important during the development of adverse political events.

The Russian part of the project is attended by eminent artists - academicians of the Russian Academy of Arts, folk artists: Zurab Tsereteli (“Faith”), Nikolai Mukhin (“Paradise”), Tatyana Nazarenko (“Hunter and victim”, “Crime and Punishment”), Valery Maloletkov )“External and internal feelings”), Evgeny Romashko (“City”), Vladimir Sokovnin (“Country and Law”), Victor Glukhov (“Habitat rivers and seas”), as well as talented youth - Vyacheslav Ereshchuk, Evgenia Maltseva, Fedor Dubrovin, Anton Batishev, Sergey Kuznetsov and others.

Zurab Tsereteli. Vera. 2007

In addition to painting, graphics and sculptures, new technologies and genres are presented. At the same time, regardless of whether video art is a performance or a performance, artists try to rely on the fundamental foundations of the academic school in this project: we observe works inspired by Repin’s “Barge Haulers on the Volga” and the endless expanses of Levitan and Vasiliev. Interest in history is noted: work with archival photography by Ivan Kolesnikov and Sergey Denisov, the philosophical work of Konstantin Khudyakov “Apocalypse” and the sculptural composition “Sunset of Civilization” by Alexander Povzner, colonial motifs in the spirit of Kipling and “orientalism” by Jerome by Sergey Kalinin. The theme of the war was also reflected (the work of Viktor Safronov, Ilgizar Samakayev), which was especially relevant in the year of the 70th anniversary of the Victory over fascism.

Sergey Kalinin

The structure of the exhibition and the art encyclopedia, in which the works of Russian and foreign authors are given on the same topic, provide, to a certain extent, the opportunity to compare the creative approaches of artists and get unusual dialogues. With such a wide geography, it is impossible to show uniformly all countries, but the project has caused such wide interest among artists that it seems important to continue it. Presumably, he could have grown into the Comenius Triennial, representing cultural ties with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the possibility of exploring trends in the fine arts in the world.

The project was implemented at the expense of the federal target program “Culture of Russia” (2012-2018) through the Department of State Support for Arts and Folk Art of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, the European Center for Fine Arts (Bratislava), administrative and financial resources of the TSHR and the Volga branch of the Russian Academy of Arts.

The project leader and author is K.V. Khudyakov, vice-president of the Russian Academy of Arts, chairman of the Volga branch of the Russian Academy of Arts, academician and member of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Arts, president of the Union of Artists of Russia. The curatorial group on the part of the Russian Academy of Arts and the Union of Artists of Russia: Deputy Chairman of the Volga branch of the Russian Academy of Arts, S. A. Kuznetsova, art critic D. Yu. Machulin, academician and member of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Arts, first vice-president of the Union of Artists of Russia, People’s Artist of the Russian Federation E. V. Romashko, Corresponding Members of the Russian Academy of Arts, Vice-Presidents of the TSHR S. G. Denisov and I. V. Kolesnikov. Project Director - Vice President of TSHR K.V. Akimov.

Slovak curators: Chairman of the Board of Directors of the European Center for Fine Arts, President of the European Academy of Security and Conflictology, Member of the Council of Europe, Honorary Academician of the Russian Academy of Arts, Professor I. I. Bondarenko, Director of Aircraft Diagnostik Company E. I. Prekopova, Honorary Academician of the Russian Academy of Arts A. Marenchikova.

The exhibition in Saratov - in the Radishchev Museum and the Bogolyubov School is open for visitors during the opening hours of the exhibition halls (see the poster) until May 29 inclusive.