Previews

Look At Me. Lorenzo Agius in Moscow

Lorenzo Agius is often referred to as a “Knight of photography.” And that is no mean achievement. He is a Maltese photographer who studied arts in England. Agius started working at 18 years of age as a photographer’s assistant, then a freelancer and soon moved to his own projects for Vogue, Vanity Fair and other glamour magazines. Agius made his mark with a series of photographs taken on the sets of the movie Trainspotting. Inspired by Richard Avedon’s series of photographs, In the American West, Agius became the author of the Trainspotting posters with Ewan McGregor that hung in students’ rooms all over England in the 1990s. Since then he has gradually become one of the top celebrity photographers in the United Kingdom. He never uses the same metaphor in portraits, putting accents on almost invisible details. “I am lucky,” Agius says, “to work with very famous people. In a world when my characters are studied very closely, I try to catch something they have never shown to the public.”

Lorenzo Agius’s exhibition, Look At Me, is presented indoors and outdoors at Spiridonov House and in Stoleshnikov Pereulok.

Alexander Deyneka. Graphics from the Kursk State Picture Gallery

This current show at the Tretyakov Gallery is a jubilee exhibition dedicated to the Soviet symbolic painter – Alexander Deyneka (1899 –1969). A witness to the social revolution in Russia, the painter rendered its vision in pictures and propaganda posters. After directing a revolutionary arts studio in Kursk, Deyneka was sent to Moscow at the beginning of the 1920s to study at the polygraphic department of the Higher Art and Technical Studios in Moscow where his teachers were Vladimir Favorsky and Ignatiy Nivinsky. Being in a circle of like-minded young people, Deyneka helped to create this new Soviet art. In 1925 he became one of the founders of OST – Society of Easel Artists and the style that would be predominant in this country for decades. The exposition displays 150 works divided between different periods of his artistic career from the 1920s to the 1960s, including sketches made during World War II, paintings from Sevastopol, France and Italy and designs for his famous metro mosaics.

Four Brands and One Funeral

To the great joy of antiglobalists and the deep grief of shopaholics, Petr Axenov opens his exhibition entitled DeadBrand at a newly restored and hospitable edifi ce of the Museum of Modern Art in Gogolevsky Boulevard. Axenov is a master of art-provocation; a photographer, painter, producer and designer – all in one. His background is like a mosaic, with aspects of his theological education at the State Svyato-Tikhonovsky Orthodox University in Moscow and his life photographing fashion shows. Coming from the family of a photographer and icon-painter, knowing the history of costume well, he felt at ease working as a photographer with Russian designers after completing his studies. He organized social events and shoots for leading Russian magazines. His latest presentation touches on the problem of the integration of fashion labels into the arts, their role in the perception of beauty as such. But this is a sign of bitter irony and addiction at the same time. Axenov tries to depict critically this omnipresent idea of consumption but seems to sympathize with it even more.

Carved in Sand

Sand sculpture has become a summer attraction in Moscow. For the second time the mansion and park of Kolomenskoye is hosting an international sand sculpture exhibition. This year the exhibition is displaying the works of masters from Russia and Europe who curiously work equally well with ice in winter and sand in summer. This year’s theme runs as The Greatest Achievements of Human Civilisation. And it is better to see for yourself what ideas these sand pygmalions’ imagination have bought to life.

A Ball for Violins: The Stradivari Festival

June 8, 11 Grand Hall of the Conservatory 19:00

With so many violins of historical importance and harmonious sound gathered together in one hall, this evening cannot but become a highlight in the season for classical music fans. With all respect to the gentlemen who will be performing on stage, this will be a ladies’ night: Venus and Lady Harmsworth made by Antonio Stradivari in 1727 and 1703 respectively, also a violin by Guarneri del Gesu (1730) and a historical violin by Antonio and Geronimo Amati (1615). The latter used to belong to George IV and was later placed in a private collection. Another Stradivari violin which has not been on a stage for a century, created by the Italian master in 1715, will be played. It has recently joined the collection of the Violin Art Foundation, having belonged to the family of the composer Felix Mendelssohn. For the opening, that will feature Yuri Bashmet and Viktor Tretyakov, the Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola and Orchestra in E-flat major, a composition by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, somebody who wanted to perform in Moscow for a long time, has been chosen. Kristof Barati – another well-known violinist from Hungary will close the festival with Antonio Vivaldi’s Le quattro stagioni (Four Seasons) to be played on four different Stradivari violins.

Jazz à la Arkhangelskoe

Arkhangelskoye Mansion June 6 – 7 12:00–22:00 For schedule and address see: www.usadba-jazz.ru

The beautiful mansion of Arkhangelskoye on the bank of the Moscow River hosts the 6th open-air Usadba Jazz festival. The layout of the park makes it possible to create different zones for music fans of different genres. The event brings together the best jazz musicians and their fans for a weekend of music under the summer sky. All styles — mainstream, lounge, free jazz, acid jazz, jazz rock, funk etc., will be represented on four stages by more than 30 names from Russia and abroad, including Nino Katamadze and her band, Insight. The legendary band from Soviet times, Auktsyon, funk guru Nils Landgren, Russian minimalist composer Alexey Aigi with his band, 4’33, Andrey Kondakov and Brazil All Stars, will also perform. To provide parents with a more comfortable rest, the organizers prepare a special game zone for kids. They are also planning a fireworks display at the end of the festival. A jazzy and relaxed weekend for the whole family.

Festival of Symphony Orchestras

For schedule and tickets see: www.symphonyfest.ru

June 12 is Russia Day. The IV Festival of the World’s Symphony Orchestras is being held in Moscow to honor this day. This year, the festival will take place in the Column’s Hall of the House of Union. The concept of the festival is simple, and this simplicity guarantees its success. High-class performers from a variety of different regions and schools, provide a balanced musical program. Thus, this year we can see and hear: the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse with Maestro Sokhiev, the Budapest Festival Orchestra conducted by Ivan Fisher, WDR Simfonieorchester Cologne with Semyon Bychkov, and many more. The compositions that will be performed include those of Dmitry Shostakovich, Igor Stravinsky, Sergey Rachmaninov, Claude Debussy, Hector Berlioz, Robert Schumann, Richard Strauss, Modest Mussorgsky… this is a rare treat.

Romance Lost and Found: The Fabergé Imperial Collection in Moscow

When Russian entrepreneur Viktor Vekselberg purchased the Fabergé collection of Imperial Easter eggs from the Forbes family in a private sale organized by Sotherby’s in 2004, journalists began to write in the Russian mass media about a renaissance of the Russian mécénat traditions. When Vekselberg also said that he had plans to construct private museums in Saint Petersburg and in Moscow, the idea seemed too good to be true. Time went by, and Vekselberg’s foundation acquired premises in Saint Petersburg that will display works drawn from his own holdings and will also show art belonging to other Russian collectors.

Meanwhile in Moscow, one of the institutions of the Pushkin Museum is justifying its name – the Museum of Private Collections; it is here that Vekselberg’s private collection is being housed.

The collection includes significant oeuvres such as the first Hen Egg, the first in a series of fifty-two jewelled eggs made by Carl Fabergé for the Russian Imperial family. This is how H.C. Bainbridge, Carl Fabergé’s close friend and representative in Europe wrote in his memoir: “When he [Carl Fabergé] proposed to the Emperor Alexander III [the year 1885 is the nearest I can come to a date], that for the next Easter gift for the Empress he should make an egg with some surprise inside it, the Tsar was all agog to know what it was to be. To keep an Emperor on tenterhooks may quite easily prove a dangerous proceeding, but Fabergé kept his secret; and, loving a joke, he produced what was, to all appearances, an ordinary hen’s egg, containing a series of “surprises” wrought in gold and platinum, precious gems and enamel. The Tsar was so pleased that he gave Fabergé a standing order for an egg every Easter-tide, and a bargain was struck between Emperor and Craftsman.” After the 2004 acquisition the collection was on display at the Kremlin Museum, in many Russian cities and abroad, but since then it has also been enriched with other Fabergé pieces – articles of fantasie – fine jewelry, watches, cigarette-cases enamelled with gold and silver – that used to belong to the Imperial family of Russia and were dispersed all over the world after 1917. Armand Hammer, an American tycoon who was the first to export Russian art and antiques from post-Soviet- revolution Russia wrote in his memoir, The Quest of the Romanoff Treasure, “Business is business, but Russia is romance.” The art that partially returns to Russia, and its romance is on display at the Pushkin Museum this June.