University artists. To the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg State University

The group anniversary exhibition is taking place in the Round Hall of the Museum of Contemporary Arts named after S.P. Diaghilev, St. Petersburg State University. The exhibition includes works in different genres and techniques by 34 authors from the collection of the Department of Expositions and Collections of St. Petersburg State University and private collections in St. Petersburg.

When preparing the project for the anniversary exhibition “University Artists. To the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg State University" by the Museum of Contemporary Arts. S.P. Dyagilev St. Petersburg State University identified almost one and a half hundred names of people who studied at St. Petersburg University and Leningrad State University. A.A. Zhdanov and who have proven themselves in the field of fine arts. Unfortunately, the small format of the exhibition space and the inaccessibility of works by Vrubel, Ge, Polenov and other luminaries of Russian painting made it possible to create an exhibition only on the basis of university collections and works from private collections. At the same time, this helped to focus on names that are not well known to the general public and relatively young masters who are in the prime of their creative powers.

In the exhibition, each of the four dozen authors who once studied at the university is represented by one work. The exhibition opens with works by classics of Russian art of the early twentieth century - Nicholas Roerich, Ivan Bilibin, Yuri Annenkov. Alexander Benois and Mstislav Dobuzhinsky are presented as masters of book illustration. The Soviet era includes works by Georgy Vereisky, Sergei Steinberg, Evgenia Evenbakh, as well as members of the nonconformist movement - Oleg Lyagachev, Valentin Gerasimenko, Vadim Voinov. Homemade booklets by the leader of Leningrad independent art, Evgeny Rukhin, are of interest as evidence of market relations that existed in the underground, despite official prohibitions.

Early forms of local conceptualism are demonstrated by Valery Cherkasov, whose works rarely appear at exhibitions. Among the artists of the late twentieth century there are both famous names such as Vladimir Shinkarev, the creator of the Mitkov movement, and those known only in a narrow circle of amateurs. Students will be interested in seeing the works of their university teachers: philosopher Valery Savchuk, art historians Ivan Chechot and Gleb Ershov. In addition to masters of painting and graphics, the exhibition includes the famous photographer Valentin Til Samarin, as well as artists who turned to new forms of art that appeared at the end of the twentieth century: performance - Viktor Snesar, video art - Lera Lerner and 3D animation - Sergei Schwemberger.

New exposition of the museum named after. S.P. Diaghileva develops the research begun by the university publications “Universities in the World of Art” (2008) and “Famous Artists at St. Petersburg University” (2017). These books demonstrated that many names of great artists, poets, musicians and theater figures familiar from childhood are associated with the university.

Lion Feuchtwanger’s popular words “a talented person is talented in all fields” is one of the explanations for the fact that it is not even humanists who become masters of fine arts, but people who studied to become physicists, mathematicians, geologists, zoologists, and soil scientists. Called “titans” by Engels, the geniuses of the Renaissance, in the person of Leonardo, who combined a scientist and an artist, created the ideal of a harmonious person, which at St. Petersburg State University was based on the field that had historically developed around the university, attracting a wide variety of talents, the reputation of a temple of science, a “place of power” or, as the English say, “place to be”. For example, Sergei Diaghilev studied at the Faculty of Law for six years instead of the required four, because, by his own admission, he “terribly loved the university” for its atmosphere and smart uniform.

Nowadays, St. Petersburg State University already teaches a wide variety of artistic specialties, and the exhibition of university students from past eras, who took up art at the call of their hearts, demonstrates to future artists the value of university education in all its high complexity and great diversity.