Mikhail Piotrovsky. Overcoming Separation

I recently attended two conferences at the same time. (Zoom allows that.) One was about political situations and the latest forecasts for the Middle East. The other was on the economic life of culture after the pandemic.

The general conclusion about the Middle East is that in the current situation no-one is going to help anyone, countries will have to deal with their own problems. Much the same was said with regard to culture. The prescription is both good and bad at once, but whether it will be applied or not remains to be seen.

The pandemic has shown that culture needs state support. A fundamental part of that has always existed. Recently the notion of a culture industry has emerged. Culture that makes money – cinema, television, fashion, and to some extent museums. How do you monetize what culture gives? The strategy is this: concessions, discounts, free visits should be funded by events for which people will pay.

I’m being provocative by asserting that culture is a luxury, but that luxury should be available to everyone. The Winter Palace was built for the emperors; few people were allowed in. It became a museum, and now everyone can go there and experience the luxury that the tsars lived in. We have to think about how to do this in a situation where concessions are limited.

The UNESCO conference discussed how to develop creative industries and attract finance with new content. Young active museums are springing up. One of them is the Museum of African American Culture in Washington. It sets itself the political mission of combatting systemic racism, which is supposedly a highly characteristic feature of America today. The Museum of Egyptian Civilization is due to open soon in Cairo. There they are discussing the extent to which a museum “bazaar” can be created around dozens of mummies, monetizing the interest of the public.

Social programmes should be paid for by the state and business, but also by the creative techniques of industry.

I often repeat that culture is a bridge and a medicine. It is important that a bridge has traffic moving in both directions, otherwise it will sway. And a medicine, too, must not turn into a poison. People can raise the issue of preserving common cultural heritage but not throw themselves at each other to destroy things. Fighting against racism can turn art from a medicine into a poison. Fighting for historical truth can do the same. Discussions need to be civilized.

The Hermitage has just presented a new open-storage facility of the Department of Classical Antiquity at the Staraya Derevnya Restoration and Storage Centre. It is a recipe for how to present a museum’s storerooms and an account of the formation of the Hermitage collections. The story of who owned these collections, how they were accumulated, how they were bought, and how they shaped tastes. It displays things that are not usually shown in museum halls. There are things that were thought to be ancient but have turned out not to be. Things that were made by famous craftsmen in imitation of ancient models. Things assembled from fragments. All ancient sculpture has come down to us in pieces. The art that everyone admires has been shaped by the efforts of restorers and art scholars. The real-life specimen is very different from the textbook example. A lot of paint was used on classical sculpture; Greek sculpture was painted all over and does not accord with the image that we are accustomed to consider the ideal.

The question of fake or original is not posed. The formation of taste, style and demand is discussed using the example of a display that contains objects that came into the museum in different ways: the collection of the Marquis of Campana, gifts to Russian emperors, collections of Russian nobles... One might simply say that our predecessors did not understand anything, leave three or four good things and throw the rest away. However, this is an interesting and important part of the history of ancient art. Now that items associated with Antiquity have gone from the market, we can discuss them calmly. When they were being bought, the question of authenticity could be pressing.

A different story is unfolding around the Fabergé exhibition. The question is the same. Fabergé is a brand, a brand within which there are things created by the hand of Carl Fabergé and things made in his workshops by numerous craftspeople. We will be publishing our technological research. We will hold conferences to look into the works created after Fabergé’s death. What should be done with things that have undergone numerous alterations, reworkings, repairs and restorations at different times? History does not discard the problem of authenticity, but raises the question of time of creation, production and attribution. All this in the context of a civilized discussion, which the museum offers without insisting.

People should be attracted not by scandal, but by a story that is informative, interesting and not primitive.

We have a small, but wonderful exhibition “Sweet Psyche...” that is about the story of Psyche, which in the Hermitage is presented in masterpieces by Canova, a series of paintings by Maurice Denis, a dialogue with Feodor Tolstoy’s drawings for Bogdanovich’s poem... The image of the Ancient Greek goddess has become part of Russian culture. The story is touching, with an aspect to it that fits the charitable side of the cultural industry.

Psyche is the soul, a symbol for which, as you know, is the butterfly. The exhibition coincided with the publication of a book entitled Butterflies in the Hermitage. It is part of a Russian-Dutch project aimed at the 15–24 generation that includes museum discussions, a youth advisory board, book publications and exhibitions. The butterfly project is connected with children who have a hereditary disorder. They have very fragile skin and are called “butterfly children”. The Hermitage works with Ksenia Rappoport’s charitable foundation to arrange events for these children. The children took part in the study to find what kinds of butterflies there are in the Hermitage. It turned out that Dutch painters depict butterflies accurately, jewellers make fictitious ones, in the Raphael Loggias there are accurate images and invented ones. Together you get a picture that fits into both a scientifically detailed description of butterfly species and a romantic story.

A library has been opened in the General Staff building as part of the same Museum 15/24 project. It focuses on contemporary art and the younger generation who understand it. A marketing ploy: we are attracting people to the museum with exclusivity. The library has been specially compiled and carefully assembled. Our experts and Dutch ones have made a display of books that should be widely accessible to young people. The library is envisaged as a place where they will meet, work, and discuss. Many events and meetings have already been planned.

An interesting discussion lies ahead about Alexander Nevsky, whose 800th birthday will be celebrated this year. He is not a straightforward figure, but his story is instructive. A Russian prince who did much for the country both militarily and spiritually. He was able to manoeuvre between the West and the East. Of course, each manoeuvre meant some sort of compromise. Compromises can be used to praise a man and to vilify him. There will be discussions: what is more important – his politics, his spiritual conversion, his sainthood?

The Hermitage preserves the memory of several Alexanders. We have held exhibitions about Alexander the Great. The War Gallery of 1812 and the whole complex of the Winter Palace are associated with Alexander I, the victor over Napoleon. Alexander II was the great reformer. His bomb-torn uniform is a reminder that the people did not accept him and he was murdered.

Costumes are a very personal thing. There are always people behind them. It is better to show costumes on mannequins than on wax figures or even in movies. We have opened an exhibition of imperial clothing at the Historical Museum in Moscow. It is constructed, on the one hand, around the images of Maria Feodorovna and Alexander III. On the other hand, there are costumes of imperial court attendants, whose names and biographies are known. Ordinary people who, having given an oath, faithfully served the emperor even in the tragic years. We managed to combine those two sides without forgetting the imperial spirit that everyone loves so much.

The Hermitage has two-way traffic with the Historical Museum. That museum participated in the Iron Age exhibition, which became a medicine for some painful issues, particularly those related to displaced art. Now the Iron Age exhibition is moving to Moscow.

In ordinary life interaction between museums is commonplace. Today it is not easy to maintain contacts, but they are very important. At a time when temptations and circumstances force you to think more about yourself, you have to remember about museum solidarity. Every time that we manage to bring something, send something or do something together, it is appreciated. We aren’t just keeping in touch – we are overcoming separation.