On 10 March 2006 an exhibition of works by the St Petersburg artist Natalya Kraevskaya entitled Pussy cat, or impossible beauty opened in the Youth Educational Center of the State Hermitage. The exhibition will run from 10 to 26 March 2006 and is part of the series Topical Art. 20th-21st centuries, which has been developed jointly between the State Hermitage and the State Center of Modern Art (St Petersburg). This program is first of all educational and is intended for students at the various institutions of higher learning around the city. An instructional Master Class took place on 11 March.

Pussy cat, or impossible beauty is Natalya Kraevskaya's recollection of her works and a presentation to young people - sculptures, panels, objects collected from decorations, small decorative things, postcards, ribbons and spangles. All of this is concentrated around icons of mass-culture such as Barbie dolls, heroes of Japanese comics, personages from Soviet films or propaganda posters. Also around what are now pop images from the history of art - Egyptian mummies, Greek Kouros and Byzantine icons.

Each object is decorated with plastic beads, bright sequins, red and blue feathers and rose petals of artificial flowers. By reproducing pure kitsch, Kraevskaya poses the question of the nature of popularity, of common places which the mass audience unmistakably recognizes in all countries.

Finally, she speaks about tastelessness as a sort of special taste, repulsive and charming, with its boundaries, laws and masterpieces. She systematically takes the aesthetic of kitsch to the absurd.

Hermitage Youth Educational Center

General Staff Building
Moyka River Embankment, 45
Tel./fax 710-95-30, 710-95-91
Exhibition hall is open from 12.00 until 17.30
Sundays from 12.00 until 16.30
Closed Mondays

At the ceremony of the open of the exhibition

At the exhibition

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