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"Golden Section": the
Newspaper of the Hermitage Student Club In April 2005 the latest issue (N2 (7) 2005) of the newspaper of the State Hermitage’s Student Club came out. The new articles and reviews in this issue will bring joy to readers. The April issue opens with a report on Marina Koldobskaya’s Master Class entitled “How to Spoil the China.” The participants were invited to use markers to decorate white plates in any way they wished. The artist’s injunctions were few: each of us wants to express something and can do so with the help of an ordinary dish. Around forty works, which are now on view in the Student Club, were set out on the floor for examination by everyone and, following stormy discussion among the participants and then among the members of an expert jury, souvenir prizes were awarded. The first page also presents an interview with the director of the Exhibition Center of the St Petersburg Union of Artists, Alexander Vasilievich Saikov. The conversation touched upon general, vital questions such as what you need to possess to enter the Union of Artists and what will be shown this spring in the exhibition halls of the Union of Artists. There were also profound philosophical questions such as the fate of works put on exhibition, where they go next, and also the creative potential of the country’s cultural capital. The second page is taken up by an extensive investigation into the history of English Clubs in Petersburg. The first mention of an English Assembly (as clubs were customarily called in the 18th century) in Russia goes back to the reign of Empress Catherine II. In the course of time the English Club had among its members representatives of the best known banking and trading houses as well as representatives of the country’s aristocratic families including Speransky, Kutuzov, Miloradovich, Zhukovsky, Turgenev, Pushkin, Karamzin, and Saltykov. Love for everything English has not dried up in Russia even today. One, of course, recalls the love for the Beatles and for rock music. However paradoxical it may seem, one might consider the legendary Leningrad Rock Club to be an offshoot of the Petersburg English Club, which had as its motto "Concordia et laetia" ("Harmony and Merry-making"). The author of the article proposes that the Hermitage Student Club choose a motto for itself in keeping with our times. The world of primeval force and expression opens before us in the work of Estonian artist Tauno Kangro, who recently was exhibited in the Museum of Modern Fine Art in Minsk. “The secret of Kangro’s sculpture is that it is built on one wave – liveliness, positive joie de vivre, life in its active manifestations. Life is a therapeutic medium which helps us to cope with mental illness, nostalgia and fatal boredom." The sculptor tells us in his own words that: "The world is simply amazing and I can say that if you know where to look, you can see an astonishing amount, so it always pays to invest in travel."
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Copyright © 2006 State Hermitage Museum |
