Editor’s Choice

Family photo album. Bygone atelier of photography

Photography was one of the most important inventions of the 19th century, and it had a great effect on the impressionists and futurists. But apart from critical appraisal during sophisticated conversations held among painters and prejudiced people about its role and use in visual art, photography— portrait photography in particular—soon became an accepted part of life for all sorts of people. At the beginning of the 20th century, an album of photographs was already found in every home. Photo ateliers were found in every city and town. The present exhibition at the Historical Museum puts the accent not only on artistic features of photographs themselves, but on the very notion of a family album as it emerged at the beginning of the last century. In a time when we store all kinds of images in computers, smart phones and digital frames, it is a warm memory to see our grand and grandparents’ photographs in cardboard frames, lithographically produced, with the name of photographer in capital letters. This is already a part of history.

[Editor’s note: A month ago, the last ever roll of Kodachrome film was process by the Kodak laboratories in the USA]

Gothic and Renaissance Art

The current exhibition at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts is a rare opportunity chance to see art dating back to the Renaissance. One part is dedicated to German painters and features paintings by Lucas Cranach der Jüngere, such as a portrait of John Frederick I of Saxony and others. Among Dutch painters are Jean Bellegambe with his New Testament Trinity, and a real gem: a small panorama depicting the flight of Mary and Joseph into Egypt by a painter from Joachim Patinir’s circle. Another component of the exhibition is dedicated to coloured polychrome sculpture from the Netherlands, Slovakia, France, Spain, Germany and Austria. Those sculptures were usually placed in the altars of churches thus creating interior ensembles.

Grande Parade, Fellini

It is difficult to hold an exhibition on Fellini’s work using conventional techniques. This exhibition was brought to Moscow from Paris. Sam Stourdzé puts it in a Felliniesque way: a grotesque parade of video, photography, sound bites and drawings. Fellini started in the 1940s together with Roberto Rossellini (Rome, Open City 1945), then wrote scripts and directed his own films (Il Miracolo, La Strada, La Dolce Vita). Working seemingly independently from any styles, he eventually created his own. This exhibition covers the creation of the 20th century myth in cinema— Federico Fellini. Stourdzé has collected material from numerous sources: photographs, drawings, and sketches never shown or published before from Fellini’s friends, assistants and collaborators. The main concept is to approach Fellini via different images: the inspiring Maestro and through personalities he created in films. This is performed in the form of a

February 22-April 24, 11:00-20:00, open every day except Mondays Multimedia Art Museum Moscow 16, Ostozhenka street www.mdf.ru

juxtaposition of still images and video. The middle of the 20th century was not only a peak time for cinema but for the media and advertising. The epoch and artistic circumstances in which Fellini lived and worked are reflected in the following sections of the exhibition: “Fellini and Popular Culture”; “Fellini at Work”; “City of Women… and Man’s Role”; and “Fellini and the Invention of a Biography”.

Unbelievable St Petersburg by Alexander Kitaev

Alexander Kitaev is not only a photographer, he is a historian in photography. Alexander lives in St Petersburg and clearly adores it. Through his wide-angle Leica he takes geometrically and compositionally interesting shots. He composes odes to the bridges and mists, white nights and stone statues living in the parks. As an artist, he draws our attention not to what is in fashion but to what is in style and taste. He is also one of the few contemporary photographers still using film, not digital cameras. With his experiments in handprinting he achieves atmospheric views of this northern city without rush,

Until February 27, 12:00 — 20:00, open Tuesdays-Sundays The Lumiere Brothers Gallery Building 1, 3 Bolotnaya embankment (Red October territory) www.lumiere.ru

as if depicting the city outside the context of time. Early morning lighting or night city lighting creates a special atmosphere of Peter the Great’s city supported by an ideal composition strengthening each of the details. One look at his works is enough to see the author’s immense literacy in visual arts and his “photographic eye”. For the Lumiere brothers gallery this exhibition is a chance to acquaint Muscovites with the St. Petersburg school of photography. Alexander Kitaev is also a curator, author of books on the theory of photography and a working author.

A dedication to Tatlin

One of the biggest collections ever of Constructivist art is being mounted at the Tretyakov gallery, starting this month. The exhibition coincides with Tatlin’s 125th jubilee. The gallery has announced a huge retrospective of his works, using those created from 1910 to 1930. Vladimir Tatlin was born in the eastern Ukraine to a family of an engineer and a poet. His arts career began in Moscow where he studied icon painting. But he was destined to become more famous in a different genre: together with Kazimir Malevich they played a pivotal role in the development of the Russian avant-garde and later the constructivist style. Travelling to Europe as early as the early 1910s and getting acquainted with Pablo Picasso there, he absorbed current trends in the arts there which he used to strengthen the spirit of Russian

February 7-May 15, 10:00-19:00, open every day except Mondays The Tretyakov Gallery, 10, Krymsky Val

futurism and cultivate what would be described as constructivism. Architect, painter, inventor. Vladimir Tatlin contributed much to abstract art. His paintings, installations, “counter-reliefs”— independent three-dimensional constructions depicting the “instincts of materials”—are actually a manual of the principles of constructivism and are on display for you.