May 20 – June 17, Saint Petersburg, Russia
Museum of the Academy of Arts, Cast Department
Universitetskaya Embankment, Bldg. 17, 1st floor
May 19, 6:00 pm – Opening, as part of the International event “Night of Museums”
Curator – Elena Gubanova, co-curator Lydia Gryaznova
The division between traditional and contemporary art adds to the list of dichotomies, more interconnected than separated. However, the question arises, what does this bifurcation of art mean from the perspective of the artist, museum, and viewer?
The “Casts” project is an attempt to remind us that contemporary art does not always oppose traditions but rather turns to the eternal harbor of classical examples, which has long become a foundation of images. Artists represented at the exhibition, in their own way, reflect on the ideas embedded in this base: agreeing with them, denying, challenging, or reassembling them. The exhibition becomes an occasion to reexamine the perception of classics by the contemporary viewer. To what extent do we currently read the original meanings, or do we just satisfy ourselves with visual impressions and perceive ancient art based on the notion of aesthetic pleasure?
The project raises questions rather than answers them: how does an artwork enter history, can we assert that the original is more valuable than a copy, and what are the relationships between modernity and tradition — is contemporary art just a copy of the classical original? The exhibition in its structure embodies two approaches to history: a linear classical interpretation expressed in the Museum’s exposition, and multiple anachronistic stories of modernity, which are dispersed throughout the Museum space and interact, respond to the nearby casts.
Exhibition participants: Marina Alexeeva (with the participation of Sergey Karlov), Lyudmila Belova, Vyacheslav Berechinsky, Ivan Govorkov, Alexey Grachev, Elena Gubanova, Anastasia Zhihartzeva, Pavel Ignatiev, Victoria Ilyushkina and Maya Popova, Vladimir Kozin, Lera Kuznetsova, Svetlana Mikhailova, Vlad Molchan, Konstantin Novikov, Viktor Pedderson, Donato Piccolo, Ivan Plyushch, Vitaly Pushnitsky, Marina Stakheeva, Alena Tereshko, Natalya Tikhonova, Olga Tobreluts, Anna Frants, Georgiy Khazankin, Leonid Tshe, Tatiana Chernomordova, Petr Shvetsov, Alexander Shishkin-Hokusai
With the participation of students from the Graphics Department of the I.E. Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture.”