Forward Or Backward?

Forward Or Backward?
Forward Or Backward?

Video: Forward Or Backward?

Video: Forward Or Backward?
Video: Sesame Street: Forward Backward Dance 2024, March
Anonim

The exhibition "Forward to the Thirties" brought together the works of architects, perhaps the youngest in the history of the museum, under the roof of the Ruins-Wing in the Museum of Architecture. This is the first project of an equally young curator, art critic Maria Sedova, who decided to show the nascent generation of Moscow architects, especially those who are keenly interested in expressing their own style. And where and where the roots of this style go - each of the participants decides in his own way.

The dashing and in some sense even provocative title of the exhibition at first misled many. Apparently, the numbers themselves have already become symbolic, inevitably evoking in memory allusions to the era of Stalin, although the exhibition is about something completely different. It seems that the curators deliberately played with this symbolism, without specifying which 30s they were talking about, and many fell for this provocation, starting to discuss the resurrection of Stalinism long before the opening (see the discussion on the Archi.ru forum).

I must say that the interest in the exhibition was very high - the Ruin wing barely accommodated everyone who came to the opening. Even the director of the museum, David Sargsyan, was taken aback, who can rarely be seen confused. The architects Mikhail Khazanov and Mikhail Filippov, who came to the exhibition, did not immediately find what to say. And all because of the pandemonium, and also, apparently, because of the yellow leaves that covered the floor in a heap. Moving along the narrow walkways of the wing, the crowd rustled loudly with these leaves, inhaling their scent, and looked at an intricate bravura-red installation by the “Children of Iofan” architectural group, the authors of the exhibition's design.

This construction, knocked down from rough planks and covered with red fabric, which even has a semblance of order divisions, is designed to frame three models of the "Children of Iofan" group. One of them is a mock-up of a project for a recent competition for a "zeppellin station" in Berlin. It is not even Iofanian at all, rather it evokes associations with the symbolic romanticism of Ludwig or the project of the Palace of the Soviets by Le Corbusier - so it is too early to speak of direct copying.

The fact that Boris Kondakov and Stepan Lipgart do not just call themselves the “children” of one of the pillars of neoclassicism is convinced by their central project, deployed on several tablets - the reconstruction of the Taras Shevchenko embankment, made in the traditions of the 30s with quotes from Vladimir Shchuko, for example, the project of the Library. Lenin, or Boris Iofan, recalling his famous USSR pavilion at the Paris exhibition of 1937. All this copying is not devoid of irony - says the curator of the exhibition Maria Sedova: "Iofans" create their own new style, lively and dynamic. This is not an attempt to revive neoclassicism once again. And they certainly do not want to be neo-Stalinists …”.

What was shown by "Children of Iofan", meanwhile, is only half of the exposition. The other was initially invisible and showed itself to come not immediately, but gradually - it turned out to be hidden under a heap of leaves. At first, few people paid attention to the floor, literally covered with architectural projects, but soon everyone was actively raking the foliage with their feet, trying to read what the curator and designers had hidden from them. And these turned out to be the projects of the remaining nine participants - graduates of the Moscow Architectural Institute.

It must be admitted that such a move by the exhibition designers is impressive, but, to put it mildly, original. The same had to be thought of, being both designers and exhibitors - to show oneself in the usual noticeable way, upstairs and layouts, and put the rest on the floor under their feet and under old leaves. The act is authoritarian - not only does it not smell of modesty, here the hierarchy is cleaner than in the palace of soviets. It turned out, generally speaking, almost a personal exhibition, seasoned with the works of other participants.

Although, of course, this is just a matter of personal relationships, professional ethics and just politeness towards colleagues. Maybe everyone agreed - yesterday's students after all. Visitors are primarily interested in what happened and how it is perceived. The exposition turned out to be more than unexpected, full of surprises and even subtly staged, and thanks to the works of those on the floor - versatile.

If the works of "Iofanov" develop the theme of the 1930s, the style preferences of the rest are diverse. Varvara Mikhelson and Nikita Golysheva can, according to Maria Sedova, be called classicists, others gravitate towards minimalism, some towards modernism. However, according to the curator, everyone is characterized by a common desire to create their own style, which does not quote the learned heritage of classics and modernism, but enters into polemics with it, plays, experiments. It shows through the archetypes of classical forms, as something new and fresh, as the projects of these young architects show through the foliage of past and passing styles.

Therefore, when, obeying the magic symbolism of the 30s, I called this exhibition retrospective, the curator pointed to the opposite interpretation: “Perhaps this is about Iofanov, but not about the exhibition as a whole, it has nothing to do with politics or Stalin., nor with the regime…. The Iofans want it in the 1930s, and everyone else wants to go to the future in the 2030s, maybe the classicist Varya Mikhelson wants to go to the 1530s, and someone has aimed at the 3030s …”. Such an unexpected difference in timing turned out to be incorporated into the concept of the exposition. And what does everyone see Stalin?

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