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The Mirrored Traditions: Works by the Jeweller
Asya Eutykh from Museum and Private Collections The exhibition in the Winter Palace (Hall No 152) has been organized by the State Hermitage Museum together with the Saralp Gallery (St. Petersburg) with the support of the Government of the Adygea Republic and the Government of the Kabardino-Balkar Republic as part of the 450 anniversary celebrations recognizing their voluntary incorporation as part of Russia. Five years ago the State Hermitage Museum held an exhibition called the Jewellery Avant-garde: Roots and Parallels. For the first time the Hermitage hallways housed items of contemporary jewellery next to archaeological items from various epochs, as an example of the similarity in the conceptions and “the avarice of visual means". The name of the exhibition Mirrored Traditions more clearly helps to express the main idea of the exposition and demonstrate how a contemporary artist and jeweller continues and develops national traditions and creativity, and the creativity of all ancient peoples that lived in the Caucasus. Archaeological excavations at the end of the 19th to the beginning of the 20th century discovered hitherto unknown ancient Adygean monuments in the Northern Caucasus: among them is the Maykop Burrow (Oshad), megalithic edifices in the village of Novosvobodnaya, Scythian monuments in the village of Kelermesskaya, and Meotes-Scythian monuments in Ulyap, a burial dating to the middle-ages by the hamlet of Kolosovka. It is these monuments which have played a decisive role in the contemporary art of the North-West Caucasus. The majority of artists have used themes and forms from these monuments, beginning from the Bronze Age and ending with the late middle-ages. Asya Eutykh is a master of artistic metalwork, a jeweller, weapon smith, artist and modeller, she is a member of the Russian Union of Artists and a National Artist of the Adygea Republic. Asya Eutykh's works can be found in museums around the world, and are presented as gifts to Heads of States, and eminent figures in art and culture. The jeweller makes use of varied techniques to work precious metals and finish off blades. Asya Eutykh used archaeological sources from the Northern Caucasus to recreate ancient methods for working bronze and reinvented their techniques for bronze casting. She often works not only with contemporary styles but reserves a large part of her work for historical methods – using decorative features and ornamental motifs, characteristic of cultures from ancient and mediaeval times from the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Near East, and in the first order, Circassian decorative-applied art. Her range of interests is extremely broad. They include the production and decoration of steel weapons (short swords akinakes, scimitars, daggers, knives), jewelled utensils, jewelled decorations; sculpture, and designing women's clothes and accessories. More than 600 items are on display at the exposition which illustrates the creativity of Asya Eutykh. It includes ornaments (bracelets, pendants, necklaces, beads, rings, tiaras, crowns, brooches), vessels (wineglasses, drinking horns rhytas, jugs), table adornments, rosaries, belts and buckles, weapons (swords- akinakes, knives). Several works were executed in collaboration with Ruslan Turkav. Among the most interesting examples of the master's work are: "The Golden Tree of the Narts", symbolizing the golden apple tree of Nartian epic. Asya Autykh has included on the trunk of the tree the symbols of all Adygean ethnicities, and religions, the genealogy of the Adygeans, Kabardians, Ossetins, Circassians. This work has become the symbol of Adygea, bringing to life the strong roots and unity of the different peoples in the Northern Caucasus and Russia. At the exhibition it will also be possible to see the conductor's baton of the maestro Yury Temirkanov, executed especially for the conductor's birthday. In shape it is reminiscent of an elegant akinak or thin stiletto. The curator of the exhibition is Yury Piotrovsky, Deputy Director of the Department of Eastern European and Siberian Archaeology. A colour, illustrated catalogue has been prepared specially for the exhibition (State Hermitage Museum, Saralp Gallery, St. Petersburg, 2007). |
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