The director of the Museum of Fine Arts on the usefulness of revolutionary tribunals
For tourists, acquaintance with Volgograd begins with the Motherland Calls monument. But it seems that, over time, this tendency may change. Alongside the military monument, guests of the city are finally discovering another local landmark — the Museum of Fine Arts, which turned 50 in April.
We spoke about eternal values, provocation in art, and soullessness with the museum’s new director, the well-known artist Elena ORLOVA.
An open-air museum
Elena ORLOVA: — Of course, we hope for help from the authorities. A museum simply should not be located in a residential building. It is constantly under threat of flooding. A collection of exhibits must be stored in specially equipped premises with the required temperature conditions. At the same time, 50 years is not a long time for a museum. And I believe the museum should not wait for better times. One has to live here and now.
E.O.: — That is exactly why, in order to catch the attention of young viewers and an inexperienced audience, one needs to invent an element of provocation. For example, to offer adults a game. Recently we held an event called “Open-Air Museum,” dedicated to Ilya Mashkov. Citizens did not remain indifferent. They drew, made batiks, created dolls — and, pleased with themselves, took the resulting works of art home. Then we organised a skit at the museum — a revolutionary tribunal over Mashkov. In the evening the chief curator conducted a candlelit tour. It seems to me that after this event the museum gained more admirers. God grant that they enjoyed it.
E.O.: — Chapman would not make a very good guide. So I think we would get no result except cheap PR. Her qualifications would hardly allow her to become a professional in museum work.
Another dimension
E.O.: — Somehow I have not been lucky with patrons. Surely there are people who support art, but, alas, it is not a mass phenomenon. Artists and performers do not need an outstretched hand. They need help in carrying out worthy projects. Unfortunately, many of the powerful people of Volgograd, in the process of making money, have become used to a frantic rhythm of life in which there is no place for feelings or emotions. They have no opportunity to stop and look around. And if they do not look, they do not see. Their eyes are closed by indifference. Yet memory, spirituality and art are an entirely different dimension from the size of a national gross product.
E.O.: — French artists of primary-school age are people of mood; impression, the impression itself, is important to them. Americans are generally more schematic. Eastern children — from India, Bangladesh — admire the smallest details, flowers and national color with rapture. The East always gravitates toward its roots. Our children, by contrast, are storytellers. They draw as if writing an essay. They pay attention to details in clothing, in objects, in trees, in nature. In their works there is almost no clearly visible national color.
AiF: — Perhaps the time has come when folklore will be remembered only through Nadezhda Babkina’s ensemble and its show-style performance of Russian folk songs.
E.O.: — I would not be so categorical. Come to our department at the Institute of Arts and Culture and look at the huge table covered with dolls in folk costumes. And they are made by our boys and girls — the very same young people whose appearance drives adults mad: what are these purple hairdos, dreadlocks and unimaginable tattoos! So I am convinced that a very good generation is growing up. They are thinking, understanding people who value genuine art with great subtlety.
E.O.: — It seems to me that representatives of the creative intelligentsia lack consolidation and a venue where everyone can show themselves. Therefore our Museum of Fine Arts is ready to take the initiative into its own hands. Starting in September we will hold musical meetings featuring both classical and alternative music. And I also have one dream: to take a person who cannot draw at all — absolutely cannot — teach them the basics of drawing over a year, and then hold an exhibition of their paintings. We must perform such artistic feats all our lives. Otherwise, without developing our feelings, we all risk turning into technocratic zombies.
Our note
Elena Orlova is an Honored Worker of Culture of the Russian Federation and a member of the Union of Artists of Russia. For 19 years she was director of the Children’s Art Gallery. She is a professor and head of department at the Volgograd State Institute of Culture and Arts. She is a well-known artist who was included in the 2005 encyclopedia “Best People of Russia.”
In 2007 she was awarded the Medal of the Order “For Merit to the Fatherland,” II degree.
Arguments and Facts — Volgograd
(AiF — Lower Volga Region, No. 29, July 21, 2010)
