Natella Voiskounski

WORLD MUSEUMS
Natella Voiskounski
The Medici... PORTRAITS! POLITICS?
#4 2020 (73)
The exhibition “The Medici: Portraits and Politics, 1512-1570” opened at New York’s Metropolitan Museum on June 26, 2021. A truly impressive range of artefacts drawn from the collections of the Met and from other European, North American and Australian museums, as well as private collections, has been brought together in one exhibition for the first time in the museum’s 150-year history. More than 90 genuine masterpieces created by the great artists of the Italian Renaissance - from Raphael, Jacopo Pontormo and Rosso Fiorentino to Benvenuto Cellini, Agnolo Bronzino and Francesco Salviati - give the impression of time turned back and allow us an incredible opportunity to indirectly make the acquaintance of various members of the Medici dynasty and the ruling elite of the era of Cosimo I de’ Medici. The exhibition is indeed “a sort of mirror of contemporary concerns,” as it is characterised by Carlo Falciani, the exhibition’s guest curator and professor of art history at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence. The age of Cosimo I de’ Medici is, without doubt, as Falciani emphasises, one of the most glorious periods in the history not only of Italian, but also of European art, so that an encounter with the masterpieces of the epoch is relevant as never before, as the subjects are, in essence, our contemporaries.

Victory: 75
Natella Voiskounski
Ars vs Bellum
#1 2020 (66)
War in any form brings home to humanity a sense of its vulnerability, of the closeness of mortality; the accompanying hardship and the immediacy of death exacerbate and heighten our perception of being. The Czech philosopher Jan Patocka (1907-1977) articulated the sense of breakdown of a wider morality in the world that was felt in the years after 1918: “The First World War gave rise to a number of explanations that reflected people’s desire to understand the monstrosity of that event, one that, although initiated by the human race, nevertheless appeared beyond the horizon of understanding of man, whether as an individual or as a larger unit; in itself war became, in a certain sense, a phenomenon that had come from beyond the boundaries of the planet itself.” Men of letters - writers, playwrights and poets - as well as artists and sculptors, composers, filmmakers and philosophers from both sides of the conflict would reconsider, each in their own way, the dramatic and existential experience of war, in prose and poetry, painting and sculpture, music and cinema.

Victory: 75
Natella Voiskounski
Ars vs Bellum | World War I. 1914-1918. The Metronome of Memory
#1 2020 (66)
The “phenomenon of war” in 20 th century art as it emerged from World War I - a brief cultural resume, drawn from both sides of the conflict.

Victory: 75
Natella Voiskounski
Ars vs Bellum | The Spanish Civil War: Prelude to World War II
#1 2020 (66)
The events of the Spanish Civil War horrified the world, and supporters of the Spanish people and the democratically elected Republican government united to oppose reactionary fascism. On April 26 1937, the Condor legion, a unit of the German Luftwaffe assigned for special duty with General Franco’s Nationalist forces, attacked and destroyed Guernica, a town of 6,000 people. In its terrible fate, Guernica became a symbol for the whole world, a forerunner of the destruction of the cities of World War II - Coventry, Stalingrad and Dresden...

Victory: 75
Natella Voiskounski
Ars vs Bellum | Art in War: War in Art. The Great Patriotic War in Russian Сulture
#1 2020 (66)
In times of momentous conflict between nations, contrary to that popular dictum Inter arma silent Musae - “When guns talk, the muses fall silent” - art and culture retain their voice. From June 1941 to May 1945, through the years of the Great Patriotic War, the muses were certainly involved in the conflict, strengthening the spirit of those who were fighting, raising the morale of those at the front and those behind the lines who contributed so much to the war effort. The cultural canvas of the Great Patriotic War was a broad one, from evacuation of the museum collections of Leningrad and Moscow to the new generation of writers who would find their voice at the front, from the immortal melodies of Shostakovich’s “Leningrad” Symphony, itself an act of resistance to the Nazi blockade, to the moving war songs that caught the mood of the people. For the post-war Soviet generations, as well as for the majority of Russians today, the Second World War is identical with the Great Patriotic War, even though the latter conflict began only with the German invasion of the U.S.S.R. in June 1941, some two years after fighting had broken out in Europe. Such loose equivalences are inevitable: the First World War had seemed to those then living in the Russian Empire to be comparable to the Patriotic War of 1812, when Russia fought another invasion from the west. The Great Patriotic War in Russia, and across the countries of the former Soviet Union, is forever stamped in the memoirs of our parents and grandparents.

Victory: 75
Natella Voiskounski
Ars vs Bellum | Monuments of the Great Patriotic War. "NO ONE IS FORGOTTEN, NOTHING IS FORGOTTEN"
#1 2020 (66)
Monuments of the Great Patriotic War: the Piskarevskoye Memorial Cemetery, the “Heroes of the Battle of Stalingrad” memorial complex, the Khatyn Memorial. “The Unbowed Man”, Ensemble to the Victims of Nazism, the monument to the Soviet Soldier in Rzhev, the War Memorial “The Liberator Warrior”.

“GRANY” FOUNDATION PRESENTS
Natella Voiskunski
Alexandra Khudyakova. "Love dolls like the Queen loved them"
#4 2019 (65)
The relatively new art of doll making has developed in a short space of time into a scintillating new form, combining aesthetic elements adopted from a range of older artistic genres with decorative attributes drawn from a wide perspective of history. This young form has reached a concentration of perfection in the work of Alexandra Khudyakova, an artist who creates a cornucopia of visual riches, one which can be as elaborate in its detail as it remains tantalizing and allusive in meaning.

“GRANY” FOUNDATION PRESENTS
LOUISE BOURGEOIS: THE ONE WHO IS NOT AFRAID
#3 2016 (52)
The “Tretyakov Gallery Magazine” and Garage Museum of Contemporary Art have been collaborators since the latter’s opening, with articles on the shows of Antony Gormley and Mark Rothko, and the exhibition of works from Frangois Pinault’s collection appearing in these pages. Co-editor Natella Voiskounski met with Garage Chief Curator Kate Fowle recently to discuss Garage’s Louise Bourgeois exhibition - one of the major events of the past exhibition season, which introduced Moscow viewers to the artist’s works from the last two decades of her life. Bourgeois was among the very few artists who represented both modern and contemporary art - she belonged to the 20th and 21st centuries equally, both chronologically and artistically.

CURRENT EXHIBITION
Natella Voiskunski
The "Everyfeelingism" of Iliazd
#1 2016 (50)
Better known as Iliazd, Ilia Zdanevich (1894-1975) contrived to remain at the forefront of the avant-garde all his life. From his youthful efforts to his more mature work, through middle age to old age, he was always at the very epicentre of the avant-garde. During his long lifetime - Iliazd lived to the age of 81 - art movements came and went with dizzying speed, with avant-garde styles in a constant state of flux, appearing, disappearing, reorganizing, merging, changing names. The most consistent figure of the avant-garde, Iliazd was something of a living monument - and he was our compatriot. As the exhibition "Iliazd. The 20th Century of Ilia Zdanevich" runs at Moscow's Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, curator Boris Fridman recalls a unique figure in 20th century culture.

Interview with Orgyen Tobgyal Rinpoche about the Project
Special issue. THE ART OF BUDDHISM
ORGYEN TOBGYAL RINPOCHE, UPON ARRIVAL IN MOSCOW, GAVE AN INTERVIEW TO NATELLA VOISKUNSKI, CO-EDITOR OF THE "TRETYAKOV GALLERY" MAGAZINE.

Alexander Rozhin, Natella Voiskounski
The "Tretyakov Gallery" Magazine and Its "Alexander Golovin. Heritage" Special Issue
Papers of the International academic conference "ALEXANDER GOLOVIN AND THE CULTURE OF THE SILVER AGE" (14.10.2014 - 15.10.2014, State Tretyakov Gallery)

INTERNATIONAL PANORAMA
Natella Voiskounski
The Cone Sisters: Collectors for Pleasure
#4 2013 (41)
The New York Jewish Museum's show last year, "Collecting Matisse and Modern Masters: The Cone Sisters of Baltimore", proved breathtaking. The exhibition displayed only a small part of what has been called "a collection of collections" of exquisite paintings, graphic works, prints, sculpture, furniture, embroidery, rugs, and textiles. But the core of the collection, its pride and glory, is Matisse, whose portraiture, still-lifes, sculpture and landscapes were on view. The exhibition told the fascinating story of the two sisters who, led by a female instinct for buying beautiful and often useless — or at least unnecessary — things, developed a perfect taste for genuine art and became distinguished collectors of 19th- and 20th-century modern European art. "A thing of beauty is a joy forever," wrote the British poet John Keats, and once the Cone sisters had experienced the joy of art, they cherished this sublime feeling throughout their lives.

INTERNATIONAL PANORAMA
Natella Voiskounski
A Renaissance Assassinated
#4 2013 (41)
The exhibition "Boris Kosarev: Modernist Kharkiv 1915-1931" at the Ukrainian Museum in New York explores the destinies of Kharkov modernism through the life and artwork of one of its most pre-eminent figures. The tally of years, as on a tombstone, defines the brief period of the development and flourishing of modernism in Kharkov.

Dear friends,
Special issue. SWITZERLAND–RUSSIA: ON THE CROSSROADS OF CULTURES
This Russia-Switzerland special issue of the “Tretyakov Gallery” magazine is dedicated to the cultural ties between our two nations. With its alpine landscapes, ancient cities, age-old castles, picturesque meadows, and Lake Geneva and its surroundings, Switzerland has long enchanted poets, artists and musicians alike with its romantic, soulful spirit.
In his “Letters of a Russian Traveller”, Nikolai Karamzin was the first to give an extensive and clear account of the unforgettable impression that Switzerland had made on him. We remember the great historian and writer’s words: “Why am I not a painter! Why couldn’t I, that very instant, commit to paper the fertile, green Hasli Valley that unfolded in front of my eyes like a most beautiful garden in bloom, surrounded by wild, rocky mountains rising up all the way to the skies!”
Editor-in-chief Alexander Rozhin
Co-editor Natella Voiskounski
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“GRANY” FOUNDATION PRESENTS Natella Voiskounski #2 2012 (35) The exhibition "Boris Kosarev: Modernist Kharkiv 1915-1931" at the Ukrainian Museum in New York explores the destinies of Kharkov modernism through the life and artwork of one of its most pre-eminent figures. The tally of years, as on a tombstone, defines the brief period of the development and flourishing of modernism in Kharkov. |
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“GRANY” FOUNDATION PRESENTS Natella Voiskounski #1 2012 (34) The New York Jewish Museum's show last year, "Collecting Matisse and Modern Masters: The Cone Sisters of Baltimore", proved breathtaking. The exhibition displayed only a small part of what has been called "a collection of collections" of exquisite paintings, graphic works, prints, sculpture, furniture, embroidery, rugs, and textiles. But the core of the collection, its pride and glory, is Matisse, whose portraiture, still-lifes, sculpture and landscapes were on view. The exhibition told the fascinating story of the two sisters who, led by a female instinct for buying beautiful and often useless — or at least unnecessary — things, developed a perfect taste for genuine art and became distinguished collectors of 19th- and 20th-century modern European art. "A thing of beauty is a joy forever," wrote the British poet John Keats, and once the Cone sisters had experienced the joy of art, they cherished this sublime feeling throughout their lives. |
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Natella Voiskounski Special issue N1. USA–RUSSIA: ON THE CROSSROADS OF CULTURES Everything was destined to be called "new" in the New World – New York, New Hampshire, New Jersey, not to mention New England and New Britain. To balance all this newness something needs to be old as well, like Old Lyme, where the Florence Griswold Museum – a landmark institution of Connecticut – is located. The Museum is also called the "home of American Impressionism" as a great many of America’s Impressionists enjoyed the warmhearted hospitality of the really vivacious Miss Florence Griswold. Her home became their home from 1899, when she opened the doors of her late Georgian mansion to artists. Soon a boarding house was turned into an artists’ colony centered around Miss Florence – "a born hostess, with that lovely air and remarkable gift of making her guests feel that it was their home, and she was visiting them". That was how Arthur Heming, the artist who was a member of the colony for ten years, described his impression of Florence Griswold in his book "Miss Florence and the Artists of Old Lyme." It was she who managed to make the brotherhood of artists a most famous summer art colony in America. |
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“GRANY” FOUNDATION PRESENTS Natella Voiskounski #1 2011 (30) The exhibition “On Line: Drawing Through the 20th Century” was quite a notable event in New YorkÕs MOMA 2010-2011 calendar not so much because of the eye-catching works on display, but rather, for its cognitive value. The title given to it says much to an attentive and interested viewer who would recognize KandinskyÕs essay with the same title; besides, it uses a term from the Internet, a kind of a homonym that is familiar to everybody. |
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“GRANY” FOUNDATION PRESENTS Natella Voiskounski #2 2010 (27) The Spring 2010 exhibition “Alias Man Ray: The Art of Reinvention” at the Jewish Museum in New York was a highlight of the city's artistic season, revealing in particular the artist's Jewish identity. Man Ray, later titled a “prophet of the avant-garde” in America, was born Emmanuel Radnitzky in 1890 in Pennsylvania, the eldest child in a Jewish family of Russian origin. Emmanuel was nicknamed “Manny”, and from 1912 onwards, when the Radnitzky family took the surname Ray, he began to use “Man Ray” to label himself as an artist; while never completely rejecting them, he nevertheless came to free himself from his familial roots. As Man Ray he concentrated on building up an artistic identity which found its realization in creative photography, the visual arts, film-making, poetry, literature and philosophy. |
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INTERNATIONAL PANORAMA Natella Voiskounski #1 2009 (22) February 20 2009 marked the centenary of the publication of the Futurist manifesto, in which Marinetti denied past artistic traditions and expressed his passionate admiration for a new technological era with its emphasis on speed, industrialization, and changes in the style of life, with a resulting strong demand for new artistic forms, styles and media. “The poet must spend himself with warmth, glamour and prodigality to increase the enthusiastic fervor of the primordial elements. Beauty exists only in struggle. There is no masterpiece that does not have an aggressive character. Poetry must be a violent assault on the forces of the unknown, to force them to bow before man. We are on the extreme promontory of the centuries!” Marinetti wrote. “What is the use of looking behind at the moment when we must open the mysterious shutters of the impossible? Time and Space died yesterday. We are already living in the absolute, since we have already created eternal, omnipresent speed. …We want to demolish museums and libraries, fight morality, feminism and all opportunist and utilitarian cowardice.” |
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INTERNATIONAL PANORAMA Natella Voiskounski #2 2008 (19) I happened to be in New York in March this year and naturally did not miss a chance to visit the 2008 Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art. This most important survey of the state of contemporary art in the USA today should by all means be of special interest for me – a representative of a country which has very little (or better to say no) experience in organizing such cultural events: 74 in the Whitney in New York against 2 in Moscow! Nevertheless the idea to make a comparison seemed real – each large-scale survey mirrors the most vivid tendencies common for the state of contemporary art in general. My expectations came true. As it was put by Donna de Salvo, the Whitney Chief Curator and Associate Director for Programmes: “The Biennial is a laboratory, a way of 'taking the temperature', of what is happening now and putting it on view… In dealing with the art of the present, there are no easy assessments, only multiple points of entry. For the Whitney, and for our public, we hope the Biennial is one way in.” |
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INTERNATIONAL PANORAMA Natella Voiskounski #4 2007 (17) The exhibition of work by Richard Pare in New York’s Museum of Modern Art features one of the most immediate and tragic phenomena in the history of Soviet (and Russian) modernist architecture. The exhibition “The Lost Vanguard” highlights some 75 photographs by the architectural photographer Richard Pare, who has worked from 1993 to the present day, making eight extensive trips to Russia and the former Soviet republics and creating nearly 10,000 images to compile a timely documentation of numerous modernist structures, including the most neglected. The exhibition was made possible by the Russian Avant-garde Fund and Senator Sergei Gordeev, its founder and president. |

INTERNATIONAL PANORAMA
Richard Serra. Style in Steel
#3 2007 (16)
Richard Serra is undeniably a great name in contemporary art. Each of his installations or exhibitions is considered a major artistic event. Serra’s sculpture is associated with a certain laconism in form, as well as minimal plastic means aimed to reach the maximum of expression. His multi-tone self-supporting steel installations are the result of a new sculptural mentality and reveal a novel semantics in sculpture.
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INTERNATIONAL PANORAMA Natella Voiskounski #3 2007 (16) “Crossroads: Modernism in Ukraine, 1910–1930”, the first major exhibition of early 20th century Ukrainian art was shown in Chicago at the Chicago Cultural Centre, and in New York at the new Ukrainian Museum. Featuring the best of high modernism from Ukraine, the exhibition included more than 70 rarely seen works by 21 Ukrainian artists; each of the works was shown for the first time in the United States. The avant-garde, art nouveau, impressionism, expressionism, futurism and constructivism movements were presented in a new light. Americans – the general public and art critics alike – were equally enthusiastic about the exhibition. |
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CURRENT EXHIBITIONS Natella Voiskounski #1 2007 (14) The Israeli artist Lora Verhovsky’s exhibition of largesize artworks made of leather and suede in the Museum of Applied Arts was a success – with numerous articles in the press, and sincere appreciation from Muscovites and visitors to the Russian capital. Thus the exhibition “Revival” enjoyed no less popularity than in Israel, and at least one of the attractions was the technique – the so-called “leather intarsia”. |

FRIENDS OF THE TRETYAKOV
The American Friends of the Tretyakov Gallery Foundation
#2 2006 (11)
Alexandre Gertsman, prominent New York art dealer, collector and founder and president of the International Foundation of Russian and Eastern European Art- INTART- has chronicled the post-Soviet “moment” through numerous museum and university exhibitions, cultural festivals, symposia, and lectures across the United States, Europe and Russia, with documented complementary books and catalogues of the artists represented. INTART offers a unique opportunity as a representative of both prominently established and lesser known, beginning Russian artists, whose collective experience invariably extracts varied response and discourse, promoting cross-cultural communication.

CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
Natella Voiskounski
The Modern Russian Portrait
#4 2005 (09)
Modern culture – and modern art, in particular – has encompassed the term “re-actualization”, which refers to cases when a phenomenon or genre is taken out of the archive and presented to the cultural community in a new light, with new meanings and a new functional orientation.
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WORLD MUSEUMS Guggenheim-Hermitage: A Budding Co-operation #4 2005 (09) The unprecedented exhibition of Russian art labeled precisely and appealingly “RUSSIA!” that opened in New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in mid-September has inspired great interest from the West in Russian art, and stimulated similar interest from the Russian side in the Guggenheim museums, particularly the Guggenheim-Hermitage Museum (Las Vegas); it is the only one of the five Guggenheim museums directly associated with Russia – and the contact is with one of the internationally most famous Russian museums. |
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INTERNATIONAL PANORAMA Natella Voiskounski #3 2005 (08) The exhibition “The Body. Art and Science” proved a major attraction in Sweden this Spring, with its eternal, allembracing search for a distinctive identity finding brilliant and eye-catching realization at Stockholm’s National Fine Arts Museum. Its curators and contributors to the catalogue (published in Swedish, with an English summary) included Torsten Weimarck, Merten Snickare, Eva-Lena Bengtsson, Ove Hagelin, Mens HolstEkstrum, Karin Siden, Ulrika Nilsson, Eva Ehren Snickare, Solveig Julich, and Ingela Lind. The two forewords to the catalogue were written by Solfrid Soederlind and Jan Lindsten. Generous contributions from museums and private collections from the Netherlands, Germany, Russia, Great Britain, France, Poland and Denmark to the exhibition made the result a major international project. |
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INTERNATIONAL PANORAMA Valentin Rodionov #3 2005 (08) In May 2006, the Tretyakov Gallery will celebrate its 150th anniversary. As the years pass, we find ourselves cons tant l y re turni ng to Pav e l Tretyakov and his vital role in the development of Russian art. A successful merchant and ent repreneur, Tre t yakov claimed that “assembling the Russian school, as it is today” was one of his life’s goals. 150 years later, we still remember Tretyakov with immense gratitude, such was his gift to society and future generations. |
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EXCLUSIVE PUBLICATIONS Natella Voiskounski #1 2005 (06) Everything was destined to be called "new" in the New World – New York, New Hampshire, New Jersey, not to mention New England and New Britain. To balance all this newness something needs to be old as well, like Old Lyme, where the Florence Griswold Museum – a landmark institution of Connecticut – is located. The Museum is also called the "home of American Impressionism" as a great many of America’s Impressionists enjoyed the warmhearted hospitality of the really vivacious Miss Florence Griswold. Her home became their home from 1899, when she opened the doors of her late Georgian mansion to artists. Soon a boarding house was turned into an artists’ colony centered around Miss Florence – "a born hostess, with that lovely air and remarkable gift of making her guests feel that it was their home, and she was visiting them". That was how Arthur Heming, the artist who was a member of the colony for ten years, described his impression of Florence Griswold in his book "Miss Florence and the Artists of Old Lyme." It was she who managed to make the brotherhood of artists a most famous summer art colony in America. |
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EXCLUSIVE PUBLICATIONS N. Voiskounski #4 2004 (05) To attempt to write anything new, or at least original, about Salvador Dali in 2004, the centenary of his birth, when there have been, and will be written hundreds of pages on his art is a daunting prospect. A genius of both creativity and the creative "escapade", Salvador Dali has become a personification of the stressful 20th century. His name is known to millions, although many of them have never seen a piece of his art – whether a painting or a graphic work, a sculpture or installation, a piece of furniture or jewellery… Nevertheless Dali remains a puzzle, a figure who puzzles viewers, art critics and all those interested in his turbulent life and stressfully shocking art. Dali was consequent in his inconsequence, a vagabond investigating new paths for contemporary art, which would then be taken on by future generations of artists. His boundless imagination led him to both nowhere and everywhere; his vigour made the creative process nonstop; his inner freedom and emancipation which reached the edge of dissoluteness allowed him to respond to any artistic challenge. Dali was like a Midas, whose touch made everything art and gold… |
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INTERNATIONAL PANORAMA N. VOISKOUNSKI #2 2004 (03) The beginning of Spring marks the revival of life, but also makes us remember all those who were killed at the different fronts of World War II, and those who were turned into "dust and returned to Earth, whence they came", and whose spirits return to us to remind us about the Holocaust… |
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INTERNATIONAL PANORAMA N. VOISKOUNSKI #1 2004 (02) “In a school of fine arts, it is one’s duty to teach only uncontested truths, or at least those that rest upon the finest examples accepted for centuries." H. Flandrin’s words, are the closest we come to articulating a mission statement at The Florence Academy of Art. With Flandrin, and so many others we could quote, as our guides, we teach the craft of working in the realist tradition similarly to how it was taught in the 19th century ateliers of Western Europe – not so as to produce 19th century work, but because... our most direct link to the traditional values and teachings of the past, which are known to have produced professionallevel artists in the realist tradition, are through those studios. Because I picked up pieces ot the tradition from many different people, what we teach at the Florence Academy is a blend of what I received from many of those I mentioned earlier, necessarily interpreted in my own way. |

POINTS OF VIEW
Natella Voiskounski
THE "TRETYAKOVKA" CLASSES
#1 2004 (02)
To enter Moscow’s Sovremennik theatre I opened the door marked "Staff Only" – and when, an hour later, I returned through it I was left with a strong feeling that for that single hour, I too had indeed belonged to its staff.
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INTERNATIONAL PANORAMA Natella VOISKOUNSKI #1 2003 (01) IT WAS MY FIRST "BUSINESS TRIP" TO VENICE, THOUGH I GUESS NO BUSINESS TRIP TO VENICE IS ONLY BUSINESS. THE IMPACT OF THE CITY IS SO GREAT AND HILARIOUS THAT YOU CAN’T AVOID THE MOST PLEASANT CONTACTS WITH THIS FAIRY-TALE, ALWAYS OVERCROWDED & BUSY PLACE AMIDST THE WATERS. I DID NOT WITNESS THE OPENING CEREMONY OF THE BIENNALE, BUT NOW, HAVING VISITED ALL THE EVENTS, EXHIBITIONS AND PAVILIONS I DO BELIEVE MR. HOWARD JACOBSON WRITING "MY VENICE BIENNALE HELL" FOR THE GUARDIAN THAT THE PEOPLE PARTICIPATING IN THE OPENING CEREMONY WERE IF NOT MUCH MORE THEN AT LEAST NO LESS INTERESTING, ATTRACTIVE, FASCINATING AND SOPHISTICATED THAN THE EXHIBITION ITSELF. AS HE PUT IT: "ART IN QUANTITY – BLACK BOX, VIDEO, CAR-BOOT-SALE INSTALLATION ART - IS NOT A PRETTY SIGHT." |