Yuri Pimenov. "Running Across the Street", 1963

The curators, who have been preparing the exhibition for several years,

tried to create as complete a picture as possible of polyphonic time, with its artistic searches, uncomfortable questions about war, euphoria from scientific discoveries and the first man in space, virgin romance and the arms race.

The exhibition included about five hundred exhibits from more than two dozen public and private collections, including the Tretyakov Gallery, the Russian and Historical Museums and the Institute of Russian Realistic Art.

In the Khrushchev Thaw it is impossible to identify clear dominants of artistic, intellectual or political life. The Thaw is an entire era and state of mind, and therefore cannot be reduced to a few names or phenomena - this is exactly how the curators, who have done enormous work, look at it research work. That is why there is no exhibition in architecture single center. More precisely, it exists, but it represents open space- “Mayakovsky Square”, around which there are six thematic sections: “Conversation with Father”, “The Best City on Earth”, “ International relationships", "New way of life", "Development", "Atom - space", "To communism!"

The opening of the exhibition, “Conversation with Father,” touches on two sore topics of that time, which were not accepted to be discussed: the truth about the war and the camps. This section presents not only artistic works of that time, such as “Auschwitz” by Alexander Kryukov or a portrait of Varlam Shalamov by Boris Birger, but also footage from iconic films: “Silence”, “Nine Days of One Year”, “The Cranes Are Flying” , as well as photographs of performances of the Sovremennik Theater, which became one of the voices of the era. The second half of the 1950s was a time of rehabilitation processes for political prisoners, which began immediately after Stalin's death, but began to gradually fade away in the early 1960s. Thus, Grigory Chukhrai’s 1961 film “Clear Sky,” about a pilot in German captivity who receives a government award after several years of obstruction and public censure, would have been impossible in the late 1960s.

The section “The Best City on Earth” is dedicated not so much to Moscow (although, undoubtedly, it is its main character), but to the city as a public space in which the private and public intersect. The city of the Thaw era wants to meet world standards; it abandons the strict hierarchy and pomp of the Stalinist Empire style in favor of a free layout and vast spaces (the Palace of Congresses in the Moscow Kremlin, the Moscow swimming pool, Kalinin Avenue). And artists - like, for example, Vladimir Gavrilov and Yuri Pimenov - watch with interest the life of ordinary people unfolding on the street.

“New Life” complements the urban theme with artifacts and illustrations of the private life of Soviet people, including many designer interior items (and they, by the way, would rightfully decorate a modern home today).

International relations of the Thaw period are not only about the build-up of the arms race and the escalation of the Cold War between Soviet Union and America, but also cultural exchange, unthinkable during Stalin’s lifetime. In 1955, Soviet musicians began to go on tour in the United States for the first time after a thirty-year break, and George Gershwin’s opera “Porgy and Bess” was brought to Leningrad, performed by the African-American troupe Everyman Opera. A little later, the Soviet capital will enthusiastically welcome the artist Rockwell Kent and pianist Van Cliburn. In 1959, the American Exhibition will be held in Moscow, where for the first time in the USSR the works of Georgia O'Keeffe, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Edward Hopper and many others will be shown. Works in this section of the exhibition include views of New York by Oleg Vereisky and watercolors by Vitaly Goryaev from the series “Americans at Home.” And a little further on is the abstract painting of the studio “New Reality” by Eliya Belutin, as a roll call with the Western avant-garde artists invisibly present here.

In the “Exploration” section we find ourselves among the main characters of the Soviet heroic epic - polar explorers, participants in large-scale construction projects and virgin lands shock workers, and in the adjacent section “Atom - Space” - surrounded by students and scientists, in the atmosphere of the famous dispute between “physicists” and “lyricists” . Here are photographs of huge demonstrations in honor of the first man in space.

Eric Bulatov. "Cut", 1965-1966.

Section “Into communism!” ironically opens with Eliya Belyutin’s large-scale painting “Lenin’s Funeral” (“Requiem”). Interpreting the classic plot of Soviet mythology in modernist aesthetics, it turns out to be a kind of visual oxymoron and symbol social project, doomed to remain a utopia.

Walking through the “districts” of the city built in the exhibition halls, you invariably return to the central square - a space of free expression, artistic experimentation and new meanings that the thaw takes on from a historical distance.

Details from Posta-Magazine
The exhibition is open February 16-June 11
Tretyakov Gallery on Krymsky Val
St. Krymsky Val, 10
https://www.tretyakovgallery.ru/

A large-scale exhibition project on Krymsky Val will combine paintings and drawings, sculptures, household items, design samples, video projections with fragments of feature films and documentary footage of the “Thaw Era” into a single installation

State Tretyakov Gallery
February 16 - June 11, 2017
Moscow, Krymsky Val, 10, halls 60–61

The “Era of Thaw” in Russian history is usually called the period from 1953 (from the time of the first amnesties after the death of Stalin) until August 1968 - the date of entry Soviet tanks to Czechoslovakia, which dispelled illusions about the possibility of building socialism with “ human face" The “Thaw” became the most important political, social and cultural project in the history of the USSR, one of the “great utopias” of the 20th century, carried out simultaneously with cultural revolutions and democratic transformations in countries Western Europe and the USA.

It is no coincidence that such a relatively short period of time (only about 15 years) is called an era. Density of time, its saturation the most important events were incredibly tall. The weakening of state control and the democratization of cultural management have greatly revitalized creative processes. The Thaw style was formed, which is an original version of Soviet modernism of the 1960s. It was largely stimulated by scientific advances in space and nuclear energy. Space and the atom - as the largest and smallest quantities - determined the range of “universal” thinking of the sixties, looking into the future.

The pervasive feeling of something great and new being created literally before our eyes could not help but be reflected in art. All participants creative process worked to find a new language that could express time. Literature was the first to react to the changing situation. The rehabilitation of some cultural figures repressed under Stalin was of great importance. Soviet readers and viewers rediscovered many names that were taboo in the 1930s and 40s. IN fine arts a “severe style” appeared. At the same time, some artists turned to the heritage of the Russian avant-garde, active search in the field of non-figurative figurativeness. Architecture and design received a new impetus for development.

This exhibition presents the curatorial interpretation of the processes taking place in culture and society. The goal of the project is not only to show the achievements of the Thaw, to demonstrate the explosion of incredible creative activity that the new freedom gave, but also to name the problems and conflicts of the era. The exhibition includes works by artists, sculptors, and directors who witnessed changes in the most important areas of the life of Soviet people. Their opinions are polemical on a number of issues, which makes the exhibition voluminous and polyphonic.

The exhibition is a single installation into which various artifacts are integrated: works of painting and graphics, sculpture, household items, design samples, video projections with fragments of feature films and documentary footage. The exhibition space is divided into seven thematic sections demonstrating the most important phenomena of the era.

The section “Conversation with Father” examines the dialogue between generations in post-war Soviet society. It was supported by two topics about which it was customary to remain silent: the truth about the war and the truth about the camps.

The section “The Best City on Earth” reveals the theme of the city as a place of contact between the private and public spheres, when residents have not yet locked themselves in small apartments in front of the TV or retreated to the kitchens, as would happen in the 1970s.

The section “International Relations” examines the confrontation between the USSR and the USA, which determined the political picture of the world in the second half of the twentieth century. The Cold War and the threat of nuclear annihilation had a decisive influence on the cultural thinking of this time. The two superpowers competed not only in the arms race, but also in promoting their way of life on international exhibitions and in means mass media.

“New Life” illustrates the program for creating a comfortable private life, when the slogan of the 1920s, “Artist to Production,” regained relevance. Artist-designers were given the task of instilling in citizens the “correct” taste as opposed to “philistinism”, and improving the world of Soviet people with the help of the everyday environment.

“Development” offers a conversation about the “romance of distant wanderings”, about the desire of young people for self-affirmation and independence, about the glorification of difficult “workdays”, that is, on those topics that were used in propaganda campaigns that accompanied the development of virgin lands, calls for distant construction sites . Artists and poets went on creative trips to capture young romantics.

"Atom - Space" demonstrates how mass higher education and development scientific institutes gave birth to new heroes of the time - students and scientists. Since the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957, space has captured the minds and become one of the main themes in Soviet culture, affecting not only paintings or poetry, but also the design of household objects and appliances.

In the section “To communism!” It becomes clear how advances in space exploration and scientific discoveries have stimulated the imagination of artists. In the culture of the 1960s one can find many futuristic forecasts similar to those made during the first revolutionary decade.

The Thaw era was full of contradictions. The exhibition at the Tretyakov Gallery is an attempt systems research its cultural heritage. It is planned that the project will become the first part of an exhibition trilogy, which will be continued by showing art from the 1970s - the first half of the 1980s, the so-called era of stagnation, and after that - the time of perestroika.

A unique publication dedicated to the Soviet era of the 1950s–60s has been prepared for the exhibition. The book contains science articles about painting, sculpture, architecture, design, fashion, cinema, theater, poetry, literature, it also examines issues of sociology, political science and philosophy of this time.

The project is accompanied by an extensive educational program, including lectures, film screenings, poetry readings, and an Olympiad for schoolchildren. Part of the program is organized as part of the inter-museum festival “Thaw. Facing the future."

• 28.06.2019 The media quote the director of the Irbit Museum of Fine Arts, Valery Karpov, as saying: “Research at the Hermitage has confirmed the indisputable authenticity of the painting.”
• 28.06.2019 The next station of the new pink Nekrasovskaya line will become one of the brightest in the Moscow metro. The city's chief architect said that when developing the project, the authors were inspired by the paintings of Malevich, Lisitsky and Suetin
• 27.06.2019 Rybolovlev filed a claim against the auction house for $380,000,000 as compensation for damages received in transactions involving his consultant Bouvier. It so happened that Sotheby's accompanied more than a third of his ill-fated art transactions
• 27.06.2019 Tomorrow in France the Labarbe auction was to take place, at which the miraculously acquired canvas “Judith and Holofernes” was to be sold at a starting price of almost $40,000,000
• 25.06.2019 This is a joint project of the bank with the Pushkin Museum, where the exhibition “Shchukin. Biography of the collection"

• 25.06.2019 The traditional twenty lots of the AI ​​Auction are eight paintings, six sheets of original and two printed graphics, three mixed media works and one wood sculpture
• 21.06.2019 50% sold. They bought from Moscow, Sergiev Posad, the city of Engels in the Saratov region, etc.
• 21.06.2019 Last Saturday auction house The Literary Fund sold paintings, drawings, porcelain, books, maps, autographs, photographs, etc. for 57.9 million rubles. The top lot was a painting by Valentin Serov - 18.75 million rubles.
• 20.06.2019 On Saturday, June 22, at the Russian Enamel house, as part of a monthly auction, buyers will be offered 516 lots of paintings, drawings, icons, silver, porcelain, glass, jewelry, etc.
• 19.06.2019 The traditional twenty lots of the AI ​​Auction are ten paintings, five sheets of original and two printed graphics, work with collage elements, a photo album and a porcelain plate with the author's painting

• 06.06.2019 The premonition did not disappoint. Buyers were in good mood, and the auction went great. On the very first day of “Russian week” the top 10 auction results for Russian art were updated. Almost $12 million was paid for Petrov-Vodkin
• 23.05.2019 You will be surprised, but this time I have a good feeling. I think that purchasing activity will be higher than last time. And the prices will most likely surprise you. Why? There will be a few words about this at the very end.
• 13.05.2019 Many believe that such a high concentration of very wealthy people inevitably creates adequate demand in the domestic art market. Alas, the scale of purchases of paintings in Russia is by no means directly proportional to the amount of personal wealth
• 24.04.2019 Surprisingly, many of the previous predicted IT breakthroughs did not come true. Maybe for the better. There is an opinion that instead of helping, the world's Internet giants are leading us into a trap. And only a small part of the richest population figured out in time what was what
• 29.03.2019 The Stroganovka students who met in the morgue were destined to become the inventors of Sots art, the instigators of the “bulldozer exhibition”, traders of American souls and the most recognizable representatives of independent Soviet art in the world From June 19 to September 15, queues will line up in the Main Building of the Pushkin Museum on Volkhonka, 12, for an exhibition of about 150 works from the collection of Sergei Shchukin - paintings by Monet, Picasso, Gauguin, Derain, Matisse and others from the collections of the Pushkin Museum. Pushkin, Hermitage, Oriental Museum, etc.
• 11.06.2019 About 170 works by Goncharova from museums and collections from all over the world, including Russia, were brought to London for the exhibition.
• 07.06.2019 Until the end of June, the Tsereteli Gallery on Prechistenka is hosting a large personal exhibition of Konstantin Aleksandrovich Batynkov, who is celebrating his 60th birthday this year.

In the May 1954 issue of Znamya magazine, after Stalin’s death, Ilya Erenburg published the story “The Thaw,” which gave its name to an entire era of Soviet post-war history. The period, which lasted only fifteen years, was able to accommodate such important events and phenomena - the rehabilitation of the repressed, the emergence of some freedom of speech, the relative liberalization of social and cultural life, discoveries in the field of space and nuclear energy, an original version of modernism in architecture - that it managed to leave quite a noticeable and a bright trail. The then “Khrushchevite” political course and significant transformations taking place in the first post-war decades in the Soviet Union and Europe are still the subject of discussion, close attention of researchers and museum projects today.

Tretyakov Gallery, Pushkin Museum im. A. S. Pushkina, Moscow City Museum teamed up to hold a joint festival "The Thaw: Facing the Future". The trilogy started at the Museum of Moscow at the end of last year with the exhibition “Moscow Thaw”. Now with the project "Thaw" The Tretyakov Gallery joins the festival.

The exhibition, including works by Eric Bulatov, Ilya Kabakov, Yuri Pimenov, Viktor Popkov, Geliy Korzhev, Ernst Neizvestny, Vladimir Sidur, Tahir Salakhov, Oscar Rabin, Anatoly Zverev and many other artists and sculptors - witnesses of the era, will be divided into seven thematic sections, illustrating the “thaw” phenomenon itself: "Conversation with Father"- about the dialogue of generations in post-war Soviet society, "The best city on Earth"- about the city as a place of contact between private and public life, "International relationships"- about the confrontation between the USSR and the USA, the Cold War and the threat of nuclear destruction, "New life"- about improving the world of Soviet people with the help of everyday objects, "Development"- about the “romance of distant travels”; "Atom - space" And "To communism!" will complete the exhibition opening in the halls on Krymsky Val.

Yu. I. Pimenov
"Run across the street"
1963
Kursk State Art Gallery named after. A.A. Deineki

V. B. Yankilevsky
"Composition"
1961

T. T. Salakhov
"At the Caspian Sea"
1966
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

T. T. Salakhov
"Gladioli"
1959
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

E. V. Bulatov
"Incision"
1965–1966
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

V. E. Popkov
"Two"
1966
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

The Tretyakov Gallery presents another large-scale conceptual exhibition dedicated to the period of Russian history, traditionally designated by researchers as the “Thaw Era.” It is no coincidence that the relatively short period of time, which included about 10 years from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s, received the loud name “era”. The density of time, its saturation with the most important events for all mankind, were incredibly high. The weakening of state control and the democratization of the way culture is managed has greatly revitalized the creative process. The Thaw style has distinct characteristics and represents an original version of Soviet modernism of the 1960s, which was stimulated by scientific advances in space and nuclear energy. Space and the atom - as the largest and smallest quantities determine the range of the “universal” thinking of the “sixties”, looking into the future.

The Thaw exhibition is a curatorial interpretation of the processes that took place in culture and society in the period from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s. The goal of the project is not only to show the achievements of the “thaw”, but also to articulate the problems and conflicts of this era. The comprehensive exhibition includes works by artists, sculptors, and directors who witnessed the decisive changes that were taking place in the most important areas of the life of Soviet people. Their opinions are polemical on a number of issues, which makes the exhibition more objective.

The pervasive feeling of something great and new happening literally “before our eyes” could not help but be reflected in art. All participants in the creative process - artists, architects, sculptors, poets, writers - worked to find a new language that could express their time. Literature responded first and most vividly to the changing situation. The rehabilitation of some cultural figures repressed under Stalin was of great importance. Soviet readers and viewers rediscovered many names that were taboo in the 1930s and 1940s. A “severe style” appeared in the visual arts. Architecture and design received a new impetus for development.

The exhibition space will be divided into thematic sections, such as “Conversation with Father”, “The Best City on Earth”, “International Relations”, “New Life”, “Development”, “Atom - Space”, “To Communism!”.

The exhibition will be a single installation into which a variety of artifacts will be integrated: works of painting and graphics, sculpture, household items, design samples, video projections with fragments of feature films and documentary footage.

The exhibition will include works by such artists as G. Korzhev, T. Salakhov, V. Popkov, A. Zverev, P. Ossovsky, V. Nemukhin, Yu. Pimenov, A. Deineka, O. Rabin, E. Bulatov, F. Infante-Arana, I. Kabakov, as well as sculptors E. Neizvestny, V. Sidur.

The Thaw era is full of contradictions, and the exhibition at the Tretyakov Gallery represents an attempt to systematically study its cultural heritage.

Address: Krymsky Val, 10, rooms 60-62

From February 16 to June 11, 2017, the Tretyakov Gallery presents the largest exhibition project dedicated to the period of Russian history referred to as the “Thaw Era.” It covers the time from 1953, when the first amnesties for political prisoners took place after Stalin's death, until 1968, when the introduction of Soviet tanks into Czechoslovakia dispelled illusions about the possibility of building socialism with a “human face.” This period is the most important political, social and cultural project in the history of the USSR, one of the “great utopias” of the 20th century, which was carried out in parallel with democratic transformations and cultural revolutions in Western Europe and the USA.

Yu.I. Pimenov. We run across the street. 1963. Oil on cardboard. Kursk State Art Gallery named after. A.A. Deineki

It is no coincidence that the relatively short period of time, which lasted about 15 years, received the loud name “epoch”. The density of time and its saturation with the most important events were incredibly high. The weakening of state control and the democratization of cultural management have greatly revitalized creative processes. The Thaw style was formed, which is an original version of Soviet modernism of the 1960s. In many ways, it was stimulated by scientific achievements in the field of space and nuclear energy. Space and the atom - as the largest and smallest quantities - determined the range of "universal" thinking of the sixties, looking into the future.

The pervasive feeling of something great and new being created literally before our eyes could not help but be reflected in art. All participants in the creative process worked to find a new language that could express time. Literature was the first to react to the changing situation. The rehabilitation of some cultural figures repressed under Stalin was of great importance. The Soviet reader and viewer rediscovered many names that were taboo in the 1930s and 1940s. A “severe style” appeared in the visual arts. At the same time, some artists turned to the heritage of the Russian avant-garde, and active searches began in the field of non-figurative representation. Architecture and design received a new impetus for development.

This exhibition presents the curatorial interpretation of the processes taking place in culture and society. The goal of the project is not only to show the achievements of the Thaw, to demonstrate the explosion of incredible creative activity that the new freedom gave, but also to articulate the problems and conflicts of the era. The exhibition includes works by artists, sculptors, and directors who witnessed the changes taking place in the most important areas of the life of Soviet people. Their opinions are polemical on a number of issues, which makes the exhibition voluminous and polyphonic.

The exhibition is a single installation into which various artifacts are integrated: works of painting and graphics, sculpture, household items, design samples, video projections with fragments of feature films and documentary footage. The exhibition space is divided into seven thematic sections demonstrating the most important phenomena of the era. The section “Conversation with Father” examines the dialogue between generations in post-war Soviet society. It was supported by two topics about which it was customary to remain silent: the truth about the war and the truth about the camps. The section “The Best City on Earth” reveals the theme of the city as a place of contact between the private and public spheres, when residents have not yet locked themselves in small apartments in front of the TV or gone to the kitchens, as will happen in the 1970s.

The section “International Relations” examines the confrontation between the USSR and the USA, which determined the political picture of the world in the second half of the twentieth century. The Cold War and the threat of nuclear annihilation had a decisive influence on the cultural thinking of this time. The two superpowers competed not only in the arms race, but also in promoting their way of life at international exhibitions and in the media. “New Life” illustrates the program for creating a comfortable private life, when the slogan of the 1920s, “Artist to Production,” regained relevance. Artist-designers were given the task of instilling in citizens the “correct” taste as opposed to “philistinism”, and improving the world of Soviet people with the help of the everyday environment.

"Development" offers a conversation about the "romance of distant wanderings", about the desire of young people for self-affirmation and independence, about the glorification of difficult "everyday work", that is, on those topics that were used in propaganda campaigns that accompanied the development of virgin lands, calls for distant construction sites . Artists and poets went on creative trips to capture young romantics. "Atom - Space" demonstrates how the mass character of higher education and the development of scientific institutions gave birth to new heroes of the time - students and scientists. Since the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957, space has captured the minds and become one of the main themes in Soviet culture, affecting not only paintings or poetry, but also the design of household objects and appliances.

In the section "To communism!" It becomes clear how advances in space exploration and scientific discoveries have stimulated the imagination of artists. In the culture of the 1960s one can find many futuristic forecasts similar to those made during the first revolutionary decade. The Thaw era was full of contradictions. The exhibition at the Tretyakov Gallery represents an attempt at a systematic study of its cultural heritage. It is planned that the project will become the first part of an exhibition trilogy, which will be continued by showing art from the 1970s - the first half of the 1980s, the so-called era of stagnation, and after that - the time of perestroika.

A unique publication dedicated to the Soviet era of the 1950-1960s has been prepared for the exhibition. The book contains scientific articles on painting, sculpture, architecture, design, fashion, cinema, theater, poetry, literature, and also discusses issues of sociology, political science and philosophy of this time. The project is accompanied by an extensive educational program, including lectures, film screenings, poetry readings, and an Olympiad for schoolchildren. Part of the program is organized as part of the inter-museum festival "Thaw. Facing the Future."