Hermitage Director Mikhail Piotrovsky on new exhibitions and the work of the museum under blockade conditions
Material prepared by Kirill Vishnepolsky and Maria Istomina
In the ratings for the world’s most-visited museums put out by The Art Newspaper, the Hermitage went down from 8th place in 2019 to 10th place in 2023. Yet the director of Russia’s foremost museum is satisfied with a result like that: statistical records have not benefitted either the Hermitage or its guests. In an interview with [the newspaper] Vedomosti, Mikhail Piotrovsky spoke about how the museum is developing under conditions of a Western blockade, why Hermitage Days are being held in Chenia and Volgodonsk, what the Digital Patrons’ Club will engage in, and where the Hermitage Institute of Costume will be housed.
– Russian museums, for objective reasons, have not so far been able to return to pre-pandemic levels of visitor numbers. And even the Hermitage, one of the world’s greatest museums, received 3.2 million people in 2023, compared to 5 million in 2019. But perhaps record visitor numbers are not necessary?
– They absolutely are not necessary, and everyone realizes that. We were probably the first to start speaking about it, because the talk about visitor numbers got annoying, as did the crowds of people that prevent you from viewing the museum. It grew old for us and old in all the world’s museums. And the pandemic provided a good opportunity to somehow start spreading the tourists out, creating time slots. Now we are regulating the flow based on how many people we can accept and not how many have turned up. The flow that the museum can accommodate. For example, the Louvre, which is built along the lines of a railway station, where crowds move fast, is fine with 8 million [visitors a year]. For us no more than 5 million is fine, and that’s including the General Staff building. Our main museum complex can handle 7,000 people at any one time, that means 20,000 per day.
– “How many we can accept” – is that regarding the preservation of the interiors, the collections?
– It’s regarding everything taken together. It’s about the preservation of the buildings, the preservation of the collections. Also for the comfort of the visitor who has come not just to tick a box but to look, to obtain some sort of satisfaction, knowledge. Right now, we have a wonderful situation when people are coming in large numbers, but it’s a somewhat different public – with fewer organized tourists. Tourists come in the early morning and evening, while in the middle of the day it’s individual visitors, and, as a rule, it’s people who came specially to the museum. Now many people are going around with children, or as couples. We observe and study: everyone’s mood improves when they come to the museum. They don’t view the usual set of things, but what has attracted them, caught their interest. And that is very important.
– Gradually people are coming to understand that you can, and ought to, visit the Hermitage throughout your life and not just the once?
– You can visit the Hermitage all the time, throughout your life. It is a dynamic museum, where the display is constantly changing. It’s not just the exhibitions that change. The strategy for presenting the stocks changes, the overall patterns change – that’s why you need to keep on visiting.
For example, we have created two Hermitages now – there’s the Hermitage on Palace Square and the Hermitage in Staraya Derevnya. [At Staraya Derevnya] there is almost the same Hermitage, but there we have open storage [exhibits are shown in a repository using equipment that combines the functions of a safe and a showcase, to which organized visitor access is possible – Vedomosti]. Here, in the main complex, we have the “reserve galleries” and the “rotating” gallery of graphic art on the top floor. Then the actual permanent displays in sumptuous halls. That hierarchy of accessibility, the work with the permanent display is our main “blockbuster” – what people come for. And all the temporary exhibitions are already a supplement. It’s a sort of present to those who have already bought a ticket – because with us all the exhibitions are inside the museum, without separate tickets.
– What particular present, what exhibition, has the Hermitage been proud of recently?
– The biggest gift that we have made to ourselves is the “Pomorian Old Believers” exhibition devoted to the Vygovskaya Pustyn community that was destroyed in the mid-19th century [the exhibition closed on 31 March – Vedomosti]. Thanks to the efforts of museum staff/collectors, its artistic legacy was saved. Museums have that function – we save all those things that seem unneeded, but then suddenly prove to be needed. So now we are able to tell about that, let’s say, alternative line of development in our spiritual history. There are some absolutely splendid icons there. They sparkle so much, have such spirituality, such power! Then there is the cast copper sculpture that the Old Believers introduced. There are copper icons of truly great craftsmanship, as fine as woodcarvings. An exhibition like that is both a revelation and a gift to everyone, and also to ourselves. We were, all in all, fulfilling a certain duty towards generations of predecessors.
– Why Old Believers in particular and why just now?
– It’s a part of our overall exhibition strategy. We have three lines, as it were. One is the Russian Empire, imperial history. The Old Believers and the 330th anniversary of the Vygovskaya Pustyn monastery fit in there. Another direction is a dialogue with East and West, between East and West. This year we are marking the 160th anniversary of the birth of the military geographer and explorer of Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang Piotr Kuzmich Kozlov, and there will be an exhibition devoted to his last excavations, the Xiongnu burials in the Noin Ula hills of Mongolia [“An Archaeological Phenomenon” from 27 April – Vedomosti]. That, incidentally, is a combination of two of our exhibition lines. On the one hand, it’s oriental cultures, the 1st century AD; on the other, it’s also the recent history of Russia’s eastern policy.
Just look at Kozlov’s expeditions – there is both the discovery of amazing lost cities in the deserts and, of course, a part of what has gone down in history as the “Great Game” [the geopolitical rivalry between the British and Russian Empires for dominance in Central Asia in the 19th and early 20th centuries – Vedomosti]. Kozlov, an officer of the General Staff, did not travel to the region for no particular reason.
It is also the story of the first joint archaeological excavations with Mongolia, with agreements on how the finds will be shared out. That is important history for museums, especially nowadays – you need to tell people where the items in your collection come from. It is also the history of the processing of those items, of how the history of an entire region became known to the world through our oriental studies. So, it turns out that our exhibitions have everything, especially at the moment – they are like exhibition icebergs with everything in them.
– The Hermitage’s dialogue with the West isn’t falling silent?
– There will be one more exhibition that also combines things European and imperial Russian – that is the Caspar David Friedrich exhibition [“Landscape of the Soul” from 8 December – Vedomosti]. He is one of the greatest German artists, the pride of the country. Just now, the whole of Germany is marking a round anniversary, 250 years since his birth. And everyone is writing that, alas, we are unable to bring anything from Russia. The thing is that Friedrich was only famous in Germany, but [the poet] Zhukovsky fell in love with him and Zhukovsky made Nicholas I love him. As a result, Zhukovsky, Nicholas I and the Russian nobility bought Caspar David Friedrich’s paintings, and we in Russia have the best collection of his works outside Germany. In the Hermitage we are proud of our Friedrich Hall. It’s a part of Russian culture: Friedrich had an influence on our, Russian art. We will be telling about how he began participating in Russian culture, how imperial patronage functioned, imperial interest, what the taste of emperors educated by the poet was.
– But what about the much talked-about turn to the East?
– We do not have any turns. We are a universal, encyclopaedic museum. We tell people about everything. If the country is turning to the East, then, please, come to us and take a look at what the East is. For instance, we put on the exhibition “Five Symbols of Good Fortune”, about Chinese folk beliefs, the Chinese language of symbols – specially for people who are planning to interact with China. Yet equally Friedrich is a continuation of our conversation with the West.
That is what the Hermitage is. The Hermitage is one of the greatest achievements of Russian culture, because it created this mechanism that brings world culture together in a dialogue. That dialogue is conducted in Russian, with Russian decor, one might say, but at the same time cultures are engaged in discussion. That is very important for the present day. And it is beautiful in itself. Altogether, there’s just one world: people have to communicate, and without communication, without influence one upon another, there will be no development. Take the Hermitage as an example of that, so to speak. Our predecessors created that kind of example for us.
– “Come to us and take a look at what the East is…” Last winter, following the reorganization on the top floor of the Main Complex, with the support of the company Rosneft the first halls of a refurbished permanent display of Chinese art and culture were opened.
– Yes, that has just been opened. The first halls are devoted to the Qing dynasty, the one that was in power in parallel with the Romanovs.
–The 17th century.
– And onwards in parallel roughly until the early 20th, so it is very interesting to make comparisons. Many things in the display were gifts: what was presented to Peter the Great during negotiations about the border, then gifts for the coronations of Alexander III and Nicholas II. It’s a sort of selection of ceremonial Chinese culture, while at the same time showing mutual links, a to-and-fro exchange. Porcelain, lacquer, jade – things that always delighted and enraptured people. That came to the West, and the West assimilated it and sought to produce the like. But there is also the wonderful, amazing Chinese cloisonné enamel, and that was something the Chinese adopted from the West. The tradition of European cloisonné reached them from the Byzantine Empire, and they took it to perfection. So, the new halls are also a tale of how sovereign cultures – and none is more sovereign than the Chinese – find themselves convenient means of interacting. What is nowadays disparagingly termed “appropriation” was previously known as “cultural borrowing”.
– The fact that the refurbishment of the Chinese display is being sponsored by Rosneft, currently one of China’s leading partners in the energy field, is most likely specific to the present moment?
– In actual fact, Chinese art has always been represented in our display. Some halls are open,; others are closed, being redone. A thank-you here to the Chinese – it’s an entire cultural world, we have many halls. There’s the Silk Road. There’s what we traditionally call eastern Turkistan and Tibet – that’s also China. In 2024 we will open a further four halls on the history of Chinese culture, from ancient times to the 17th century. That new display is indeed coming about with the aid of Rosneft, which always selects such highly palatable exhibitions. The company is a long-standing partner of ours. Previously we worked together on the exhibitions “Piero della Francesca. Monarch of Painting”, “Egyptomania” and “After Raphael” and with Rosneft’s support the museum has opened a permanent display devoted to “Ancient Colonization of the Northern Black Sea Region”.
– How is the Hermitage’s interaction with the outside world happening now?
– For instance, we are fond of holding Hermitage Days, both within Russia and beyond. When we bring a small exhibition, a single masterpiece, and show people our latest technologies, our VR programmes, our inclusive programmes for the visually impaired, for everyone who wants to touch something. We give lectures about the Hermitage. In other words, we tell about the Hermitage as an organism. Exchange and interaction follow the same principle when it is not possible to deliver [large] exhibitions. And it is a difficult matter now to take exhibitions to other countries, even friendly ones, because it’s impossible to pay the insurance, they won’t accept the money, who will pay for the transport, and so on. That is all conducive to the main collections remaining in situ. Still, the whole complex of an exchange of information about what the museum does, narratives with a small addition of objects – that is what we are doing in Serbia, China and Oman.
– Even in Oman?
– One of the methods of interaction that we have is the creation of reciprocal “corners” or halls in museums. We did have a Hermitage hall at the National Museum of the Sultanate of Oman in Muscat. We closed it for a time [in 2022], when military operations started, but now we are reactivating it. Recently we opened a new display in the Oman hall at the Hermitage, and we are working out a plan to get the things already prepared to the Hermitage hall in Muscat.
And scholarly contacts with Western countries still remain. They are semi-clandestine, so to speak, because officially it’s all forbidden there. Still, unofficially our colleagues are travelling, doing work in libraries, doing work in museums, as individuals. That will never cease altogether, especially as everyone appreciates that it is essential. Over the 20–30 years of open scholarly exchange, everyone grasped how we all need each other and how we can work together.
– The history of culture, political history – those are global fields of learning, not something that can be studied piecemeal.
– There are very many close ties. We have just opened an Erebuni corner in the Urartu Hall at the Hermitage. Erebuni was an ancient city on the site of present-day Yerevan, and the celebrated “Erebuni Stone” bearing an inscription stating that King Argishti founded the city [in 782 BC – Vedomosti] now stands in the Hermitage. At the Erebuni museum, located at the site of the excavations, we shall be creating a “Hermitage Corner” as well at the end of the year, where there will also be a few items from the Hermitage.
– Irrespective, that is, of tensions having begun to show now between us and Armenia on a political level…
– Precisely because of that! Now such matters are even more important than before, when everything was fine and dandy. When there is a difficult situation, then we provide that sort of material reminder of what Russo-Armenian cultural ties are. A reminder is needed because it’s all complicated. It’s complicated everywhere, and in the West it always was. Again, our exhibitions are “icebergs”. We should convey some content besides beautiful objects. For example, we held a great many exhibitions in the West. People were saying that they were tired of those tsars in the West…
– They were tired?
– Here the cry went up: why are you taking these treasures out of the country; why did you take an exhibition about Catherine [the Great] there? Because when the exhibition about who Catherine was took place in London, when Catherine was mentioned Londoners would not recall the risqué tales but start to debate instead. Upon viewing that exhibition the French and English argued whether Catherine was an Anglophile or a Francophile. When the exhibition was over, another new film came out and regarding Catherine things went back to before. The deep meaning of our exhibitions lies in us eliminating stereotypes. For ourselves as well, incidentally.
– How do you convey that meaning abroad now, when major exhibitions are not possible?
– Now, we create exhibitions in the cloud, for example. We do, thank goodness, have the latest technologies. We know what a blockade is; this is not a first blockade for us. In a blockade two things are important. First, you inside the blockade should do something that roughly mirrors what is taking place outside. Secondly, it is important to have everyone see that life with you is going on. [During the wartime siege] concerts and evening celebrations were held here. In just the same way, we are holding exhibitions, even ones that provoke discussion and debate. In Turin an exhibition has just now opened devoted to the “Isleworth Mona Lisa” – an English Mona Lisa, a variant [of the painting]. Some people consider it to also be by Da Vinci, others do not – so there’s discussion and debate. We too are currently holding an exhibition about Leonardo: there are several works in Russian collections that also perhaps have a connection to Leonardo, i.e., arguments are ongoing (“New Secrets of Leonardo's Paintings” in the Picket Hall of the Main Museum Complex until 19 May – Vedomosti].
Many exhibitions chime with a general conversation taking place in the world. In Oxford they are holding a huge exhibition of Flemish drawings. Here, we and the Pushkin Museum are putting on in parallel a huge exhibition of Flemish paintings, showing how from Russian collections alone we can create fundamentally interesting displays rich in meaning.
– It’s a blessing that the Hermitage’s stocks make it possible to do anything you want.
– The stocks of Russian museums and the ability to create exhibitions, you know. Look how we staged those celebrated exhibitions of the Shchukin and Morozov collections, which set the whole of Paris astir [in 2016 and 2021 – Vedomosti]. Again, it was questioned at the time why we were taking our treasures off somewhere. Still, we didn’t just show all of France that we had things; we showed that our wise traders appreciated futures, bought what would rise in price – and in that way, through their investments, they created all of modern French art. That was a revelation; it was very important. Then when February [2022] had already happened, and the exhibition was still there [in Paris], I was saying - this is the Russian flag above the Bois de Boulogne. Indeed, that’s how it was, and how it was perceived, although not everyone liked it. Now, though, we have the latest technologies – everything we do is in the cloud. You know how icons appear in the clouds and everyone can see them. That's exactly how it is – all our exhibitions, and those of our colleagues, the Historical Museum, the Russian Museum, the Pushkin Museum, the Tretyakov Gallery. The entire Hermitage can be visited virtually, absolutely all the halls. So, we can be seen.
– There were Hermitage Days recently in Belgrade and in Kazan. Just a few days ago, Hermitage Days took place in Volgodonsk – a relatively small city, with 170,000 inhabitants. Tell us about the Hermitage’s regional programme, what does it give you?
– We conduct 13 to 15 sets of Hermitage Days a year. It’s a genre that allows us to talk about the Hermitage as a museum organism, and not just to show nice things. That is a very important conversation. The collections need to be made accessible to different kinds of people. Why Vologodonsk? That is part of a major joint programme with Rosatom. Vologodonsk is one of the Rosatom cities, the next for us is Sarov, and so on.
– On what principle do you determine the places for holding Hermitage Days?
– In that particular case, we go where we are wanted. If they really want us and are prepared to finance it, and to show and present everything to the appropriate standard. The Hermitage’s labour is unpaid. That’s our contribution. Transportation, insurance and organization locally is all down to the sponsors. It’s not a crazily big expense, so anyone who wants can do it. Our next Hermitage Days will be in Chechnia, probably in October, for the second time already.
We also have our permanent display satellites, Hermitage centres. There’s Kazan, Vyborg, the Hermitage–Ural in Yekaterinburg, the Hermitage–Siberia in Omsk, and there’s Vladivostok, where we have a small centre as yet. We are opening in Kaluga, opening in Orenburg. There too, we regularly hold Hermitage Days to have as many people as possible see our collections. People can gather and view the Hermitage exhibitions. Schoolchildren travel in. That’s our network for a presence everywhere and various forms of presence.
– Is this income or expenditure for the Hermitage?
– It’s expenditure but, put it this way, a small expenditure, because we always find a sponsor. Generally, it must be said, inter-museum connections in Russia now are functioning splendidly and developing. There was always a vertical arrangement: Moscow and any sort of periphery – “the regions” was the expression used. But those so-called regions are now communicating quite splendidly between themselves. Well, first, there are Hermitage Days everywhere and, moreover, our exhibitions are travelling to other cities. There is also the “Museum Routes” programme, when experts get together in various places and discuss their museum potential. There is a museum of the future conference in Yekaterinburg. It was created by a Yekaterinburg museum that, properly speaking, ranks as a municipal-level institution. They are constantly making exhibitions one with another. They hold exhibitions in Nizhny Novgorod. They have an exhibition from Perm there now – there’s repair work at the picture gallery in Perm and the wonderful Perm collection will be in Yekaterinburg.
All the museums in Russia have started communicating a great deal with one another. That’s a good result of, perhaps, both the political situation and the foundation we laid earlier, something prepared in part by the Union of Museums of Russia. We are becoming aware, understanding that the unity of Russia’s space is supported by museums, churches and museums. And we are very pleased that such powerful interaction is coming about. We are already preparing a whole series of displays at the Hermitage with the participation of all Russian museums – we will be bringing one item each from the museums of Russia, just the one, and not a whole exhibition. Exhibitions of a single item are our third major line of exhibition activity, besides the “Russia” and “West–East” lines that I already mentioned.
– What’s is the Hermitage’s budget today? What sources of income make it up?
– Our annual budget comes to around 5 billion roubles, of which approximately 3 billion is state subsidies and 2 billion our own income (ticket sales, merchandise, organizing events and so on), of which around 300 million roubles is sponsorship support. We think about money and know how to count it. All the same, the Hermitage is not a commercial organization, so we are thinking not about profits, but about income, that is money for the functioning of the museum.
– And expenditure? How much a year, for example, do you spend on adding to the Hermitage’s collection? How do you determine what you need at the given moment? What acquisitions from recent years are you proud of?
– Our own funds for the expansion of the collection are not very large – 100 million roubles a year. The state allots around 10 million more to the museum for that purpose. Sometimes patrons will give us money to acquire some specific work of art, or else they just give them to us. One of the main gifts of that sort was Malevich’s Black Square, which Vladimir Potanin presented to the museum.
– In 2023 the Hermitage acquired Nazim Sultanovich Mustafayev’s collection: 47 pairs of shoes from the 17th–19th centuries. Do you devote particular attention to expanding that specific part of the Hermitage collection?
– Yes, we bought those very rare items, because footwear in principle does not survive very well. Speaking about acquisitions, though, I would sooner point out that in recent times we have somehow ended up buying whole collections. Right now, we are acquiring the collection of the antiques dealer Yury Abramov, a professor and Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. During his lifetime he presented the Hermitage with many exhibits, was a generous art patron, a remarkable person, a real figure. He died in 2021, and we are buying items connected with Russian history from his heirs. In the amount of roughly 100 million roubles altogether.
Besides that, with the aid of the patron Mikhail Kirasalov we were able to purchase a collection of furniture and interior objects from the imperial yacht Polyarnaya Zvezda. The furniture is a masterpiece of the Russian Moderne (Art Nouveau). After the revolution, the Polyarnaya Zvezda became part of the floating base for the submarines of the Baltic Fleet. The furniture was removed and went travelling somewhere. During the war, the yacht itself was anchored just here, in the Neva, and it supplied the Hermitage with electricity. After restoration those pieces will be displayed in Nicholas II’s library.
– It was a revelation to me that the Hermitage is not just archaeological collections, and not just Da Vinci, but also one of Russia’s richest collections of costume. Now the development in that direction particularly in the Hermitage is becoming ever more evident. Three years ago, we all went to the Historical Museum for the collection of Empress Maria Feodorovna’s dresses and shoes that had come from the Hermitage….
– Fashion, costume is an important part of history. We have an enormous collection, restoration of the highest standard. It would be a sin not to show what we are doing. At Staraya Derevnya, in one of the buildings, we have gained the opportunity to create a display of costume, a permanent-temporary one that is continuously changing. That is to say, we have the repository itself and, alongside of that, large showcases where the light and climate is such that costume can be kept there for a fair while. You go in and the light comes on, leave and the light goes off. The lighting is subdued in general. They can be exhibited there quite a long time. Peter the Great’s costumes were there, all restored, and now it’s the Belle Epoque, French and Russian costumes from the late 19th century. The technical potential emerged to do things precisely this way, and not as before – show a costume for a month and then you can’t show it for five years because that will cause damage.
So the idea naturally arose that perhaps we should, like the Metropolitan Museum, create an Institute of Costume – and we probably will have an Institute of Costume. We are building it at Staraya Derevnya. It is the latest building in the complex, 13 storeys. It will house a library and the Institute of Costume. Consequently, the matter of contemporary fashion designers immediately comes up. That’s a very complicated business. They give us things, we accept them. Sometimes we accept, sometimes we don’t.
– Which present-day couturiers are we talking about?
– On 28 March a very interesting exhibition opened in the Foyer of the Hermitage Theatre, called “The Strict Young Man” [running until 14 April – Vedomosti]. That’s Konstantin Gavrilov, an avant-garde fashion designer, a representative of the Petersburg avant-garde. It’s his pieces – a collection was recently donated. We also have some remarkable things from [Viacheslav] Zaitsev. We held a Zaitsev exhibition that we prepared along with him over many years. He himself was its curator and designer. Then something was donated, something purchased and so on.
– Did you say a 13-storey building is being constructed in Staraya Derevnya?
– Yes. The building itself is already finished. Now we are facing it with glass. The design, as a matter of fact, was produced by Rem Koolhaas in its time, but now it has changed greatly for all kinds of reasons, so I don’t know whether Rem will acknowledge his authorship or not. We’ll see how it turns out, then we’ll present it. It’s provisionally being called the library and will have all sorts of latest library-related technology – really cutting-edge: everything should be better than anyone else has got! Many libraries are opening just now, specifically ones in new buildings, especially in northern Europe. We will come up with something that will be even more wonderful, exactly in the spirit of the Hermitage in the Cloud, the Celestial Hermitage.
– The Hermitage has what is probably the best digital collection of museum exhibits in Europe. Is the work in that field a priority for the museum?
– That field is indeed one of our priorities. Among other things, with the participation of Interros in 2023 we launched a “Digital Art” pilot project. Its essence is the creation of NFTs, non-fungible or art tokens, as we now call them, from three school of Raphael frescoes in the Hermitage collection – Venus and Cupid on Dolphins, Venus and Adonis and Venus Pulling Out a Splinter – which are in the process of restoration. The tokens will be created at various stages in the work on these exhibits – before, during and after restoration. And all of them are unique images. Three art tokens like that have already been bought. We will be directing the funds obtained towards the restoration of other items from the Hermitage collection. Some of the money, in particular, will go to the restoration of Lucas Cranach’s painting The Virgin and Child under an Apple Tree.
– Will you be continuing to issue NFTs?
– We are currently thinking about how to develop this line further and have decided to establish a Club of Digital Patrons of the Hermitage, which will be made up of people and companies involved in digital art technologies and various thingamajigs of that kind. NFTs, totally unique reproductions are one of the forms of such art. Now it’s time to think of some others. We will also be thinking about how the digital Hermitage, the “Celestial Hermitage”, its reserve copy, is going to develop in general. Well, we shall see. Together with the European University [at St Petersburg] we have created a School of the Arts and Cultural Heritage. There, besides the history of the arts, we are developing an artificial intelligence laboratory and a laboratory for palaeogenomics [the study of ancient DNA –Vedomosti]. There too, of course, sponsors are needed. Well, what kind of AI lab will we be able to create without big corporations? And there are corporations that can create a “clean room” among the patrons of the European University. Therein lies the sense of the Digital Patrons’ Club – they are people who will help to use the most advanced technologies and ideas, not merely money, to the benefit of the Hermitage.
– And are there any ideas, any projects yet? And can you say who has already joined the club?
– We are only beginning to set it up. Interros, our partner for projects in the digital sphere, will of course be joining. Presently we are still in negotiations with several major technology companies.
– Based in Russia?
– In Russia and South Korea. I cannot go into any more detail as yet.
This material was published on 12 April 2024. The Russian-language original can be found here.
