On 27 November 2020, the formal opening of the exhibition “The Hermitage in the General Staff Building. Twenty Years of Exhibitions” took place the General Staff building.
The display is spread across various spaces within the General Staff building and spans eleven rooms. The main part of the exhibition is presented in the attic above the vaults of the famous arch of the General Staff. This unusual, in some way mystical place, where the original wooden structures and 19th-century skylights have survived, was previously inaccessible to visitors. The opportunity to see it will be a long-awaited gift to the museum’s guests.
The new exhibition in the Attic of the General Staff building was opened in online format by Alexander Nikolayevich Dydykin, head of the museum’s “General Staff” department.
“The Attic where we are now, is probably the last display space in the General Staff building where an exhibition is being held for the first time. Here Carlo Rossi created for us some interiors that are exhibits in themselves. I thank all out members of staff who were involved in preparing this exhibition.”
Mikhail Borisovich Piotrovsky, General Director of the State Hermitage, sent his online greetings:
“The restored Eastern Wing of the General Staff building is the most modern thing in the Hermitage and in present—day museum practice. That is why I am addressing you from a screen, and that too is a present-day ‘pandemic’ form of ritual. I am pleased to be opening and presenting an exhibition devoted to the exhibitions in the General Staff building.
“Now this part of the attic is a part of the museum space. It is our museological statement: how to present architecture, vintage architecture, the engineering peculiarities of a museum. The General Staff building is a part of the encyclopaedia that is the Hermitage, and within it there is also a special encyclopaedia of museum practice. In point of fact, the history of the Hermitage is all a textbook of museum management, and the story of the restoration of the General Staff building is the latest and, let’s say, most intense chapter.”
Also present at the opening ceremony was the exhibition curator Yekaterina Savishchenko, a junior researcher in the History of the General Staff Building sector. After the formal introduction, the curator conducted an online walk around the new display, a recording of which can be found on the museum’s social media.
The display invites people to find out about the history of the General Staff building, to view rare photographs of the mammoth restoration process that turned a historical monument into a modern-day museum, and to recall the most interesting exhibitions that have been held here over the last two decades. The exhibition also features documents from the Hermitage’s archives, old exhibition posters, and archaeological finds dating from the 18th–20th centuries that were made on the site during the restoration work.
Specially for the exhibition, the studio ARKI – Kinetic Architecture is presenting the media installation Bird of the Future, a metaphor for the Hermitage’s museum activities in the General Staff building over the years. The shape of the art object was inspired by the layout of the building that resembles on the one hand the silhouette of some magical bird and on the other the lines of an ultramodern supersonic airliner.
Besides the display in the attic of the General Staff building, visitors will see in the museum halls a series of photographs that show the state of the interiors before restoration. By comparing what appears in the archive photographs with the how they look today, people will be able to appreciate the scale of the changes themselves.
Materials used in the creation of the exhibition were provided by the Russian State Historical Archive, the Research Museum of the Russian Academy of Arts, the Shchusev State Museum of Architecture, the Central State Archive of Cinematic, Photographic and Phonographic Documents of Saint Petersburg and the Archive of the State Hermitage, as well as the design drawings for architectural and construction work.
A scholarly publication has been prepared for the exhibition in the form of an anthology of exhibitions and events in the General Staff building over the past 20 years (State Hermitage publishing house, 2020). Foreword by Mikhail Piotrovsky. Compiled by Yekaterina Savishchenko. An electronic version will be included in the exhibition.
The exhibition curators are Olga Anatolyevna Korotkova, Head of the History of the General Staff Building sector, and Yekaterina Sergeyevna Savishchenko, junior researcher in the same sector.
Visits to the exhibition are possible only as part of a guided tour group with time slots. Electronic tickets will be available for purchase in the near future from the website tickets.hermitagemuseum.org. Watch for updates on the official Hermitage website.
A recording of the opening ceremony is available for viewing on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FG4ewqFSic.
