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  Christmas Gift The second Christmas Gift exhibition (room No. 155) revives the historical tradition of annual Winter Palace displays showing the best creations of St. Petersburg masters of porcelain. Most of some 100 creations by contemporary masters showed in this year's Christmas exhibition are loaned by the Lomonosov Porcelain Works. The exhibition is opened by two earliest pieces — Vladimir Semenov's vase Crystal (Grand Prix of the 1958 Brussels exhibition) and Nina Slavina's set of tableware White Nights, which forebode metamorphoses of porcelain in the late 20th century. During the 1990s, masters of the Lomonosov Porcelain Works readopted the avant-garde traditions of the 1920s and the experiments made in porcelain by Kazimir Malevich, Wassily Kandinsky and Nikolay Suyetin. Souvenir copies of Malevich's originals made for sale have become an event in contemporary porcelain. Inna Olevskaya proposed three versions of painting for the famous teapot of Malevich, including the most spectacular black version with a red square in white frame. Olevskaya's creations are rich in images from the past. In the forms and colors of her Magic Philter avant-garde forms blend with historical reminiscences. The sculptural composition Hangout is inspired by the Star Wars fantastic blockbusters and street and club subculture. Mikhail Sorokin carries on the analytical study of form and color begun by suprematists. Each of his basic creations of the 1990s conveys a key idea, which was actual for the master at a specific time. His set of tableware Mechanical Voyage embodies the idea of unending movement, while the chess set Another Choice depicts a fight between the good and the evil, and the ensemble Metamorphoses, vicissitudes of human destiny. Tatiana Afanasyeva displays a number of new works, including the series Knot which continues her six porcelain tableaux under the title Atlantis. The set of tableware Palm of the Neva and the dish Roofs of St. Petersburg are inspired by the artist's native town, which features in many of her creations with its individual character and changeable mood. Yuliya Zhukova is a master of impeccable graphic compositions, which are easily adapted to mass production. She is equally at home in popular print style (Darling set) and stylized motifs of Italian Renaissance (Italian Portrait dish of 1993, and Domino set of 1994). Works by Tatiana Charina are executed in her favorite genre of still-life. She looks deep into the silent life of things, painting portraits of fruits and flowers, which she shows in unexpected aspects, carefully reproducing their compositions, plastics and textures. Kirill Kopylkov's creations are remarkable for their laconism and eccentricity, including the set of vases 3-logic and figurines of Zodiac symbols. The artists represented in the exhibition have showed another aspect of Lomonosov porcelain. Along with the traditional colors and ornaments, they use landscapes, still-lifes and portraits (both as decorative elements and images with their own value). Their professional sphere provided to them an ample opportunity for unfettered expression. |
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