The project One Minute More at the State Hermitage

20 September 2010 the project One Minute More prepared jointly with the State Hermitage, Consulate General of the USA in St Petersburg and the PRO ARTE Foundation with the support of the Ford Foundation was presented at the State Hermitage within the framework of the Hermitage 20/21 program. The project presentation was attended by Dmitry Ozerkov, Curator of the Hermitage 20/21 project; Sheila Gwaltney, Consul General of the United States of America in St Petersburg; Yelena Kolovskaya, Director of the PRO ARTE Foundation.

Guy Livingston, a famous American pianist and producer, became the author of the art project concept. He ordered 60 one-minute piano plays to 60 composers from 18 countries. A team of Dutch and Belgian filmmakers shot 60 one-minute films: animated, documentary, abstract and "classical". Composers: George Antheil, Alvin Curran, David Dramm, Julia Wolfe, Ron Ford, Dmitri Kourliandski, Mayke Nas, Thierry Pecou, Klas Torstensson, Valery Voronov, Pamela Z and others.

Filmmakers: Nelleke Koop, Thijs Schreuder, Juan de Graaf, Newt Hinton, Menno Otten. The project exists in the dvd format and the concert version and is popular with the audience and critics worldwide. Guy Livingston performed plays "to the accompaniment" of a big-screen video at the Hermitage Theater.

The Hermitage 20/21 project was launched in 2007. The project’s major areas of activity remain unchanged: organization of innovative exhibition projects and collecting activities in the field of contemporary art. The exhibitions America Today (2007), Chuck Close. Seven Portraits (2008), Timur’s Space: St Petersburg – New York. To the 50th anniversary of Timur Novikov (2008), Boris Smelov: Retrospective (2009), Wim Delvoye. D11 (2009), Newspeak. British Art Now (2009) arranged within the project framework became highlights in the cultural life of St Petersburg and attracted attention of both the media and the public, with a total of about 500 thousand visitors during the entire opening period of exhibitions. An important part in the Hermitage’s activity in the field of contemporary art was occupied by educational programs intended to show the creativity aspects of the contemporary art process through meetings with artists (Ch. Close, A. Cvijanovic, T. Farmer) and curators (N. Rosenthal, A. Ippolitov, D. Ozerkov), round tables and master classes, thematic contests among young St Petersburg artists.

www.hermitage.ru

The PRO ARTE St Petersburg Charitable Foundation of Culture and Art was founded in 1999 (original name – the PRO ARTE Institute). The Foundation’s activities are associated with studying and promoting the art and culture phenomena of the 20th-21st centuries. The Foundation supports projects of Russian artists and organizations, as well as organizes lectures, seminars, conferences, exhibitions, concerts and festivals. PRO ARTE works with visual art, music, dancing, architecture and journalism. The PRO ARTE Foundation is the initiator and organizer of the festival Contemporary Art in Traditional Museum, the first St Petersburg museum festival, composers contests Pythian Games and Step to the Left, and other unique projects. Many of the Foundation’s programs are implemented in partnership with the leading cultural institutions of St Petersburg such as the State Hermitage, the State Russian Museum, St Petersburg Philharmonic Hall. The PRO ARTE Foundation’s programs are supported by the Culture Committee of St Petersburg Government, the Ford Foundation and the Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation.

www.proarte.ru

Dmitry Ozerkov, Curator of the Hermitage 20/21 project

Sheila Gwaltney, Consul General of the United States of America in St Petersburg

Yelena Kolovskaya, Director of the PRO ARTE Foundation

Guy Livingston

One Minute More at the Hermitage Theater’s stage

Guy Livingston performing plays "to the accompaniment" of a big-screen video