aaus-list @ ukrainianstudies.org -- [aaus-list] NY Review of Books review of "Russia!" exhibit @Guggenheim

["Max Pyziur" <pyz@brama.com>]

fyi,

MP
pyz@brama.com
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An Affair of State By Jamey Gambrell
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18628

Review of:
Russia! an exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City,
September 16, 2005\u2013January 11, 2006
Russia! Nine Hundred Years of Masterpieces and Master Collections
Catalog of the exhibition by Gerold Vzdornov, Sergei Androsov, and others

Guggenheim Museum, 426 pp., $75.00; $50.00 (paper)
Russia! Catalogue of the Exhibition

Guggenheim Museum, 80 pp., $24.95 (paper)



Some nut grafs:
[...]
All the press materials as well as a large plaque at the entrance to the
museum tell the viewer that "Russia!" was "realized under the patronage of
Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation." The list of honorary
co-chairs includes former Secretary of State James Baker, Senator Charles
Schumer, and Richard Haas, president of the Council on Foreign Relations.
There is no mention of President Bush, however; the exhibition apparently
is not part of a diplomatically engineered cultural exchange. Putin's
support raises a question: What has his patronage consisted of, and why is
it being given such prominence?
[...]

In his remarks, Potanin writes that "Russia!" was timed to coincide with
the sixtieth anniversary of the United Nations, so that "a broad public...
[may]...discover a new Russia and through our cultural heritage see and
appreciate our country in a new light." Mikhail Shwydkoi, a former
minis-ter of culture under Putin, writes that "for almost the entire
twentieth century, the work of many of Russia's most talented artists was
sealed off from the rest of the world. 'Russia!' offers fresh perspective
and new insight on our culture." That the Hermitage has provided works of
West-ern European art collected by Rus-sians serves, as Shwydkoi expresses
it, to underscore "the perspicacity of Russians as art collectors and as
caretakers of some of the most remarkable expressions of world cul-ture
through periods of war and peace."[4]

The "innovative" and indeed unusual aspect of the exhibition's sweeping
survey of Russian art is the inclusion of Western European art, largely
from the imperial collections of Peter the Great and Catherine the Great,
and of the post-Impressionist paintings acquired by the Moscow merchants
Sergei Shchukin and Ivan Morozov, which were nationalized after the
Revolution. These works give the viewer a vivid sense of the influences at
work in Russian art at different times. The Hermitage section contains
only a small sampling of the museum's holdings\u2014but the paintings by
Van Dyck, Murillo, Watteau, Lorrain, and Rubens alone are well worth a
visit.
[...]
"Russia!" is an exhibition well worth seeing. Visitors who know little
about Russian art will see many important works and come away with a more
complex view of the country and its culture. But the question remains:
What "new perspective" has been provided on the "new Russia"? An
unpleasant suspicion hovers over the exhibition that the art and its
history were secondary considerations for the organizers and that the main
point was that the "exhibition was realized under the patronage of
Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation." Was it all, in
effect, a big advertising campaign, a mammoth photo-op designed to
establish the bona fides of the new Russian patrons of the new Guggenheim
global museum while providing America's former rival with a glamorous
opportunity to exorcise fifty years of stereotypes (unsmiling commissars,
the Gulag, the KGB, bad teeth, long lines, admirable but irritating
dissidents, mafioso "New Russians" in leisure suits dripping with gold
jewelry, commandos in black masks, tanks on city streets...)?

Two weeks after the show opened, the front page of the Sunday Styles
section of The New York Times seemed to suggest an answer. Against a
bright red background with the headline "RUSSIA!" printed in gold there
was an inset picture of President Putin at the Guggenheim opening; below
him were photos of Russians in New York \u2014a menswear designer, a
beautiful young "supermodel," and a young "heiress." The headline said:
"New Slavs of New York: All Bling [Flash] and No Borscht." The patrons and
sponsors of "Russia!" were no doubt pleased with the publicity as well as
the exhibition; those concerned about the accurate presentation of art and
history, which should be the Guggenheim Museum's mission, will feel
differently.

....


Jamey Gambrell writes on Russian art and culture. Her most recent book is
Aleksandr Rodchenko: Experiments for the Future, a translation of the
artist's diaries, letters, and other writings. (January 2006)