#2 2012 (35)

The Spanish Collection -
Picasso, Dali, Miró, Gris, Clavé, Tàpies,
at the Pushkin Fine Arts Museum

The collections of artists' books amassed by Boris Friedman and George Gens are probably the fullest of their kind in Russia. There comes a point in the life of many collectors when they feel the urge to make the riches at their disposal available to the public. Such were the motives of Friedman, when he approached the Pushkin Fine Arts Museum with a suggestion for cooperation. The museum was pleased to accept: the material on offer was of extremely high quality, and such projects have undoubted educational value. On show from February to the end of March 2012, it was the first an exhibition of its kind in Russia.

The sculptor Anna Golubkina is an outstanding Russian artist of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Although her work has always been the subject of scholarly study, there still remains much to learn. An unexplored but distinctive and unexpected phenomenon in Golubkina's art — she generally gravitated towards monumental forms of sculpture — is represented by her cameos, made from seashell and ivory. Initial efforts to estimate the total number of these miniatures, which were created over many years, and understand their significance in Golubkina's work, led to the conclusion that carving cameos was a modest "parallel" occupation which existed alongside her more renowned and innovative work in sculpture.

This summer for five months, London's Tate Modern is staging a major retrospective of Damien Hirst's work; despite mixed reviews, the show has become a star attraction on a par with the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations and the London Olympics. To get in people are queuing for hours; perhaps they want to inhale the sweet smell of success or find out what makes the work so valuable. Either way it provides an opportunity to reappraise the achievements of an artist who is (in)famous in his own right, but who also masterminded the early success of the graduates who came to be known as the Young British Artists (YBAs) and who dramatically changed the London art scene in the early 1990s.

The age when Russia fought against Napoleon presented through artefacts from the Pushkin Museum and the collection of Alexander Vasiliev

The Pushkin Museum is one of the first museums to begin the commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the war against Napoleon, this landmark event in Russian history — the Patriotic War of 1812 — with the museum's new project "TIME OF GLORY AND ELATION!". The developments in and around the year 1812 had a special importance for Pushkin both as an individual and as a writer. This age of huge upheaval became for the poet one of the main sources of inspiration and focused his reflection on the destinies of humankind, his motherland and the world. A whole series of his masterpieces in poetry and prose (from the youthful "Recollections about Tsarskoe Selo" to the philosophical "The Commander") directly or indirectly address the era that remains embedded in the memory of almost all citizens of Russia. The circle of his family and friends included many people who had participated in the heroic battles of the Great European War of 1812-1815.