Aline Kalinina
10th Jubilee at Lumiere gallery
Ten years ago in a 30 sq. metre space in the Central House of Artists a photography gallery opened, showing Soviet photography of the 1920s-50s. Today this is one of the best galleries in Moscow, but also one of the few spots in the city where every exhibition is worth seeing if you love and study photography. In the gallery’s archives there are works by eminent Soviet photographers, among whom are Boris Ignatovich, Yakov Khalip, Alexander Greenberg, Alexander Ustinov, Lev Borodulin, Vladimir Lagrange and Naum Granovsky. In this decade, the gallery has published several retrospective books on the history of photography from the 1960s to the 1980s in the USSR. The gallery is celebrating its first adult jubilee with a notable exhibition of 150 collection- level pictures,
December 9-January 15
Building 1, 3 Bolotnaya embankment
Red October chocolate factory
Open: 12.00 – 21.00, except Monday
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the crème-de-lacrème of Russian and Soviet photography. These are hand-printed originals, through which one can trace the evolution of photography in the Soviet Union. Unlike in the West, where it was common practice for photographers to sign and stamp their photographs, for Soviet photographers who seldom had exhibitions, prints were rare, which makes the prints on display, collected by the gallery or donated by the relatives of the photographers, all the more precious.
Stanley Kubrick: History in photographs 1945-1950
The Multimedia Art Museum presents a unique series of photographs by the legendary 20th century film director, Stanley Kubrick, exhibited for the first time in Moscow. Here are some 200 of the images he produced for Look magazine in the 1940s in New York. Stanley Kubrick has long been recognised as one of the greatest directors in the history of cinematography. Hundreds of thousands of articles have been written about Kubrick’s work, as well as thousands of research papers and hundreds of books. His films have been studied in great detail, but until now one aspect of the great director’s talent has been largely ignored. Few people know that Kubrick was a professional photographer. From his earliest years he was fascinated by photography and frame
November 18-January 29
Multimedia Art Museum Moscow
16, Ostozhenka street
Open: 11:00 - 19:00
Except Monday
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composition, and this gave rise to his passionate interest in films. The current exposition is thematically divided into series including “Etudes in the Subway”, secretly taken with a shutter trigger concealed in his pocket (1946); the dramatic “A Tale of a Shoeshine Boy” (1947); “Family Circus” (1950), inspired by perspectives of Russian Constructivism and Bauhaus; “Evening and Copacabana” (1948), revealing the backstage life of dancers; “Aqueduct Hippodrome” (1947), showing one of America’s favourite sports— racing; and many others.
Polish Poster Art
There is something in old advertising posters that makes them resemble old photographs, and one cannot stop watching them guessing and recognizing great-grandmother’s favourite perfumes, soaps or chocolates. The start of the 20th century with its rise of Art Nouveau brought with it genres that earlier were considered below a gentleman’s attention. Advertising placards and posters came into use in the last decade of the 19th century, with France and Great Britain being the principal trend-setters, each in its own field: vignette hand-painted letters in French versus thoroughly measured and perfectly printed English illustrations.
Examples from this epoch give us to understand however that in every European country advertising placards actually advertised the very Moderne style they were made in. The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts regularly presents foreign illustrations and posters. Several years ago the success of Mucha’s show inspired expositions of French and English posters. This year it is Poland’s turn. More than one hundred works are on display, to start with placards created by the participants of the “Sztuka” artistic group: Teodor Axentowicz, Karol Frycz, Kazimierz Sichulski and Józef Mehoffer; to Warsaw placards by Stanislav Hrostovski and Stanislav Neakovski.
December 20-February 26
Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts
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Winter euphoria at the Apothecaries’ Garden
Photos by Aline Kalinina
The Apothecaries’ Garden on Prospect Mira is a kind of secret garden. It’s not easy to find it behind the noisy Prospect Mira, but having found it you will be awarded with its seasonal treasures. If young Jolyon were to meet Irene—the other character from the Forsyte Saga—for the first time in a Moscow garden, this would have been the place. So, about treasures... With spring, summer and even autumn, everything is clear: from snowdrops to tulips and chrysanthemums and golden leaves, and golden fish in the ponds, it is all picturesque and inspiring. But in winter? Snowdrops are asleep under the snow, the fish are safely transported to big, warm aquariums. But in in the garden’s orangeries the tropical queens’ reign continues uninterrupted. Orchids are on display throughout the winter. There are thousands of them, and all preferring sunshine and more sunshine. Surprisingly some of them feel quite at ease in the heart of hibernating Moscow, blooming and inviting Muscovites to the Winter Festival of Orchids which is held in Moscow for the third time. The orangeries are a huge, heated building. To leave the frost behind, you have to pass through several doors and you will be rewarded with a feast of colour which contrasts with the rather bleak scene outside.
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Till March 23,
Open: 12:00 – 19:00
Apothecaries’ Garden
(near Metro Prospekt Mira)
26, Prospekt Mira,
every day except Mondays
www.hortus.ru
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Elio Ciol at the Gallery of Classical Photography
“Charmed with Reality” is the name of a retrospective exhibition by the Italian photographer Elio Ciol. Over one hundred and fifty works are presented by the Gallery of Classical Photography for the first time ever in Moscow. In Italy they call Elio Ciol a patriarch of photography. His works in a way glorify Italians and Italy. Ciol was born in a small town in Northern Italy in 1929. As an assistant in his father’s studio at the age of 15, he started taking photographs. After WWII, as an experienced photographer, he won numerous photographic competitions in Italy and USA and in the 1950s became a participant of the Venetian photo club, La Gondola, publishing numerous photography books, the first of which is dedicated to Assisi. Ciol has been photographing almost the same places for 60
Till January 29,
open: Wednesdays-Sundays 12:00 -21:00
Gallery of Classical Photography
Building 1, 23 Savvinskaya embankment
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years now, and is always faithful to his black and white film. The world as seen by Ciol through his camera is beautiful in its harmony. Whether it is his native land, and the people who farm it, magnificent architecture or whimsical landscapes, children playing or monks at prayer, his photographs make up mosaics of Italy herself. Ancient edifices, the religious beauty of Assisi, portraits, genre scenes, all shot in black and white, are the elements that render calm and beauty together.
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