The master's degree is called Advanced Urban Design - that is, advanced urban design, and is positioned as the country's first master's degree in this area. Anastasia Smirnova, one of the two curators of the project at the opening, said that the release of this program means a transition to professional urbanism, comparing it all with football, which can be courtyard - amateur, and professional: someone joins up in groups, fixing benches in the courtyards, but professional urbanists are also needed. It sounded - well, how it sounded. The second curator Daria Paramonova read out the list of the participating undergraduates. For the first time, the State Tretyakov Gallery admitted students into its walls, - Tatiana Mrdulyash, Deputy Director for Development, said at the opening, and did not regret it. It is assumed that other incursions may also be, "the museum is open for cooperation."
The project consists of two parts. The first - "Another route", consists of comments on 37 works from the exhibition of 20th century art, pasted on the floor with yellow dies. They were written, as sounded at the opening, by people close to art - but not art critics. Among those who commented, however, were Vladimir Paperny and Grigory Revzin, whom it is still difficult to call non-art critics. Well, not the classic "art critics". Comments are added to the text, parallel to the exposition, they can be read one by one, for which booklets with numbers are issued at the entrance. And you can do it anyhow - the authors of the project comment, without imposing themselves in anything. You can tear off a round sticker from the booklet, stick it on yourself and the volunteers working in the gallery will find you and explain everything. Tall yellow stools appeared in front of the commentary paintings, making the texts easier to read. In front of the two paintings, two yellow armchairs and a table with books from the Strelka publishing house were installed: they are called living rooms, one is located behind Pavel Labaz's balloons, and the other is where “Two leaders after the rain” is. In general, I must say that Strelka is somehow more active in the project than the Higher School of Economics - both curators are from there, books are from there, and only the Institute of Media and Design is listed as partners of the exhibition.
The curators explain that the undergraduates saw the museum as a city and worked with it “urbanistically”; they arranged what we are already accustomed to calling “interventions”, invaded, adding a little comfort and a few topics, but without fundamentally changing anything. Without outweighing the pictures. A delicate intrusion. You can complete the route by purchasing a ticket to the State Tretyakov Gallery; with the advent of stools, it has become more comfortable - definitely, in a museum, as in a supermarket, there is always a lack of places to sit, especially with a backrest, so urbanists are in trend, moreover, stools resemble benches that their colleagues add to the city in many ways.
The second part of the project is several columns of an improvised portico from the side of the Crimean embankment. In front of the columns of the State Tretyakov Gallery, tied with metal ties, gradually losing slabs of marble in anticipation of the reconstruction of Rem Koolhaas and Vladimir Plotkin, five and a half luminous columns appeared on stepped pedestals - a light installation. Their task is to mark the second entrance to the building, to invite those who are walking along the Wowhaus to the gallery. Another column was placed in front of the main entrance from the Muzeon side.
Columns with varying degrees of symbolism denote the essence of the difficult profession of an urbanist. For example, a half-column made of corrugated plastic that turns a round support into a figure eight is called "editing" - this is how urbanists work with existing urban fabric. The neighboring column, which resembles a school model of a molecule made of balls and sticks, simple, but fairly multiplied, suggests that the city is a network. The house in the foam snow is a reminder of Moscow flower stalls, "they work in winter and summer, day and night."The last column is more like an exhibition than others, holes have been made in it with a metal sleeve, denoting several topics, in particular, urban debris, urban "big data" presented by the monitor from the Habidatum company, headed by the ex-head of the Higher School of Economics, Alexei Novikov, are examples of information sources, that a city planner can use. This last column is called "Optics", and I must say that the word "optics" with the meaning of the angle of view sounded at the opening more than once. The installation is on the street, so it is open free of charge and around the clock.
Definitely, in recent years, more and more is required from educational institutions, especially new ones. It is necessary not only to teach, but also to present solemnly, and there is no doubt that traditional tablets with projects are not at all in vogue, the further you can move away from them, the better. Here we went very far. On the one hand, the project itself is quite urbanistic, and "ready-made": they accentuated the second entrance to the Tretyakov Gallery (one must also remember when it was opened, probably when the courtyard was being renovated?), Offered an alternative view of the exposition This is no longer a project - implementation. On the other hand, at the opening it was said: the institute is a media, and a professional urbanist needs to be able to present himself: … well, you are journalists, you understand what this is about. Everything is true, and here we see mainly media, that is, PR, presentation, and a design slightly reminiscent of Artemy Lebedev's stickers in the Moscow metro. As if urban studies are just an excuse for design, and more for media, media, media … There is a feeling of the presence of urban students at the skits, playing with the basic concepts of their profession, just no jokes. Which is understandable, since the exhibition is designed for the visitors of the State Tretyakov Gallery, who, it is assumed, hardly understand the concept of urbanism. In general, the main plot of the exhibition is in itself the cooperation of the magistracy and the Tretyakov Gallery, and this plot is fully played out.
