The Hermitage. Seclusion
8 December 2006 - 8 February 2007

On 8 December 2006 the exhibition entitled The Hermitage. Seclusion opened. The show is a one-man photo project by Yuri Alekseevich Molodkoviets.

The exhibition consists of a series of black and white photographs (41 photos in 75õ110 cm 125 õ170 cm formats). The camera used was a Pentax 645. The film was Ilford Delta 100 with paper also from Ilford, as well as manual printing and Kodak Endura paper and digital printing with Durst Lambda 130.

The project The Hermitage. Seclusion is the first time in history that a museum has been filmed at night without either visitors or light. The hero of the project was not so much the Hermitage exhibit items as the special atmosphere surrounding them which makes them still more enigmatic. After all they are located in historic interiors and were witnesses to many sometimes dramatic moments in Russian history.

Taking as his point of departure the proposition that the Hermitage is a living museum and nothing can occur without leaving traces, Molodkoviets tried to capture the special atmosphere of life at night in the museum. The filming was done over a period of 12 months and yielded a series of photographs that tell us about the private, secret life of things, about the special part of time and space in which the heroes of the shooting - moonlight, reflections in blurred glass and the movement of shadows - seem to have been imparted a soul and the camera which has captured these moments is a medium capable of establishing contact with an unreal world.

A bilingual album about the exhibition has been issued by the Fontanka Publishing House (London).

The printing house MGR is issuing a 12 page calendar.

Kodak (Moscow), together with Photopro has created part of the exhibition - the darkened hall with illuminated photos.

The exhibition has been organized with assistance from Stilhaus, Mania Grandiosa,

Ipris, Kodak, Photopro, Pentax, MGK, Yarky Mir and Fontanka.

The Information Partners are: Adresa Peterburga, Afisha,, Interior+Design,
Antikvariat, Rossika, Ermitazh, TNT Izbrannoye.

The curator of the project is Maria Borisovna Khaltunen, senior researcher of the State Hermitage.

Rockwell Kent 2006 Larger view		Approach to the Oriental Gallery 2006 Larger view

Child and Satyr
2006
Larger view

Raphael Loggias
2006
Larger view

Field Marshals’ Hall
2006
Larger view

Alexander I
2006
Larger view

Peter I
2006
Larger view