Alexander Brodsky and Nadezhda Korbut made the installation "The Director's Office" at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. The press has already called this event a quiet revolution. Five years ago, Marina Loshak replaced Irina Antonova, who was the director of the Pushkin Museum from 1961 to 2013, and worked in the museum since 1945, that is, for almost 70 years: under Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Gorbachev, Yeltsin and Putin. The style of the Pushkin Museum had to change, and it changed. He became more open and less prim both in the formation of exhibition policy (they called contemporary art and architects) and in his daily work. And to emphasize this, Marina Loshak decided to open even her own study to the public, and for the design she called her favorite artist Alexander Brodsky.
You have to understand what happened here before. The 6 x 6 x 6 m cube is a tall, formal space with a stained-glass window covered with corrugated curtains. It contained antique furniture from the collection of the museum, working meetings took place. Brodsky divided this cube into two floors: private and public space, and not only was the private space above the public space, the private office was also higher - he got four out of six meters in height. If anyone remembers, the motto of the Soviet pioneer of the past era was "the public over the personal"; here the opposite is true.
Downstairs, negotiations and office work are still going on, there is a massive table with green cloth, museum showcases with artifacts and furniture from the 17th-19th centuries, compacted as a result of the installation. Is that some of the windows are sealed with tape crosswise, and the scotch is then untidy stripped - as if after a move, Brodsky's trademark trick.
Above, a room for relaxation and meditation was formed - a light white space, and artifacts soar - personal belongings of Marina Loshak: a crepe de Chine vintage dress, a Ukrainian icon of the Mother of God in the manner of a child's drawing; they are complemented by an existing chandelier and a vintage table with a green lamp. Moreover, since the upper space turned out to be a simple partitioning - in the early Soviet times, it used to be, temples and palace halls for communal apartments were blocked off - and the chandelier remained in its place as it was, then it hangs in the white part of the office almost at the floor, at the feet, allows you to look at yourself from above. That is, it turns from a lighting device into an artifact, an exposure element.
This is almost a boudoir - a place where you can take a break from people and things, especially in contrast to the cramped lower office. The pre-revolutionary stained-glass window, freed from the curtains, with chiseled wooden profiles and cast-iron (?) Glass is very good. Brodsky, as a specialist in old windows, who once created a pavilion for vodka ceremonies from them, “saw” this stained glass window and, with the help of a white background, helped others see it. A staircase leads to the white boudoir - 13 steps. The entrance is greeted by a dress from the thaw period. It's amazingly good there.
I remember David Sargsyan, the former director of the Museum of Architecture named after A. A. V. Shchusev, who also turned his office into an artifact. But there, no one specially designed the office, it developed as an imprint of David's personality, and the emphasis was on the things that lived on his table and hid the stories of famous people associated with them. There are also two offices: one "classic", museum, filled with originals, with Egyptian masks and Bruegel, similar to the storage department - and the second, cleaned up. In one there is a green cloth, in the other a green lamp "ascended". One dates back to the founding of the museum, the other is modern, light, minimalistic. These are two different ways of showing objects - from the 19th century and from the 20th, although everything is more complicated, of course, but the two ideas are visibly stratified here, feel the difference. The upper cabinet soars above the lower one - how can one soar with a thought. On the other hand, one way or another, but the museum has two directors, the former and the current one, which can also be seen in the composition of Brodsky / Korbut.
Marina Loshak's white room is about air and light. By itself, a set of objects, accented with whiteness and space, are significant: a window, an icon, a chandelier, a table, a dress. And he talks about the director's image. About the fact that the queen of the museum is now not a strict iron lady who has seen the general secretaries, but a fragile and beautiful woman. And the attitude to power in the museum is different now: its power will change frequently, the installation by Alexander Brodsky is only part of the artistic program.
At the Vipper readings, it was announced that from time to time directors of major museums in the world would be invited to the throne at the Pushkin Museum. The directors of the Prado and the Pompidou Center have already agreed. It is expected that each of them will rule the museum for one day, and commission an installation from an artist, which will be delayed for three months.
The installation by Brodsky and Korbut will remain in the museum until June 2. It can be visited as part of a group by appointment.
