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Hermitage Magazine. Winter
2008, N 4 (13) Letter from Director of the State Hermitage Museum In former times we had keywords - symbols of development: "acceleration" and "new thinking". Today these words are forgotten before they could become a reality. Meanwhile the "new thinking" is still necessary in the field of culture. It is needed for those who create and keep culture, and for those who perceive it, and for those who have control over its life and development. Activity of institutions of culture is still characterized as a "service" in business documents, museum showpieces are "goods", at the customs. When they speak "cultural values" almost always they mean monetary cost of works of art. Money equivalents have completely covered with themselves a special type of values - cultural ones. Accordingly, they constantly apply to culture simplified concepts: "property", "price", "liability for damages", "inventory" both in words and in thinking. It is very difficult for society to understand, that the culture is the most important that we have, it is a heritable memory of generations, the main difference between a man and an animal, and people among themselves. Once again it was expressed in that the culture has dropped out not only from national projects, but also it is not obviously considered in the raw of the state priorities. And not only in Russia. Public, even intelligent one, has weaned (or has not gotten used) to think and argue independently. An article about history of coloring of the Winter Palace and the Palace Square is published in this issue of the magazine. This article is a part of a discussion which the Hermitage tries to organize. But the mechanism of the discussion does not work at all. People do not wish to understand what it means "to discuss". They perceive everything as a certain decision with which it is possible to agree or struggle. Maximum they can achieve is what is called a "public hearing". To remonstrate is raised as almost the sole form of participation in a discussion. It is primitive. On this background it is very difficult to explain nuances of innovative and delicate approach of the Hermitage to the problem of demonstration of new art in the classical context, the Hermitage method of comparison of different architectural ideas, Hermitage "philosophical" museological discussions which are not assuming immediate actions. From my point of view the new thinking should be based on three important aspects of public role of culture - as the ethics of public life, as an especial style of economics, as a stimulus and criterion of efficiency of decisions. But about them next time. Mikhail Piotrovsky,
Events 100 % Italian Music Serge Schirru about genius of Purcell Cinema Vanina Schmidt about the Berlin Film Festival Exhibitions Zoya Necheporenko about Alberto Giacometti Dance James Pedersen about Mikhail Baryshnikov as a photographer Design Alexander Kein about Campana brothers Architecture Valery Lukin about color palette of the Palace Square Theatre Christopher Gordon and Kate Walk Photosession Twilight of Tsars Name Ekaterina Stupakova, Irina Novash and Nikolay Lugansky Retrospective Ñhristoph Alsie about medieval manuscripts and miniatures Place Tatyana Suvorova about holiday illumination of Turin. Showpiece Ekaterina Khmelnitskaya about Tamara Karsavina’s figurines Collection Alexandra Nevskaya about Meisen Porcelain Manufactory Art + Money Review of the market Valentine Dyakonov about Moscow conceptualists Anastasia Mityushina about last tendencies Museum Elena Kolovskaya about museums in XXI century In focus Kaspar David Friedrich’s exhibitions Announcements Journal of international exhibitions Our Hermitage Langlands and Bell |
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