Yuri Pimenov. "Running Across the Street", 1963

The curators, who have been preparing the exhibition for several years,

tried to create as complete a picture as possible of a polyphonic time, with its artistic searches, uncomfortable questions about war, euphoria from scientific discoveries and the first man in space, virgin romance and the arms race.

The exhibition included about five hundred exhibits from more than two dozen public and private collections, including the Tretyakov Gallery, the Russian and Historical Museums and the Institute of Russian Realistic Art.

In the Khrushchev Thaw it is impossible to identify clear dominants of artistic, intellectual or political life. The Thaw is an entire era and state of mind, and therefore cannot be reduced to a few names or phenomena - this is exactly how the curators who have done a huge amount of research look at it. That is why there is no single center in the exhibition architecture. More precisely, it exists, but it is an open space - “Mayakovsky Square”, around which there are six thematic sections: “Conversation with Father”, “The Best City on Earth”, “International Relations”, “New Life”, “Development”, “ Atom - space", "To communism!".

The opening of the exhibition, “Conversation with Father,” touches on two sore topics of that time, which were not accepted to be discussed: the truth about the war and the camps. This section presents not only artistic works of that time, such as “Auschwitz” by Alexander Kryukov or a portrait of Varlam Shalamov by Boris Birger, but also footage from iconic films: “Silence”, “Nine Days of One Year”, “The Cranes Are Flying” , as well as photographs of performances of the Sovremennik Theater, which became one of the voices of the era. The second half of the 1950s was a time of rehabilitation processes for political prisoners, which began immediately after Stalin's death, but began to gradually fade away in the early 1960s. Thus, Grigory Chukhrai’s 1961 film “Clear Sky,” about a pilot in German captivity who receives a government award after several years of obstruction and public censure, would have been impossible in the late 1960s.

The section “The Best City on Earth” is dedicated not so much to Moscow (although, undoubtedly, it is its main character), but to the city as a public space in which the private and public intersect. The city of the Thaw era wants to meet world standards; it abandons the strict hierarchy and pomp of the Stalinist Empire style in favor of a free layout and vast spaces (the Palace of Congresses in the Moscow Kremlin, the Moscow swimming pool, Kalinin Avenue). And artists - like, for example, Vladimir Gavrilov and Yuri Pimenov - watch with interest the life of ordinary people unfolding on the street.

“New Life” complements the urban theme with artifacts and illustrations of the private life of Soviet people, including many designer interior items (and they, by the way, would rightfully decorate a modern home today).

International relations during the Thaw period represented not only an increase in the arms race and the escalation of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and America, but also a cultural exchange unimaginable during Stalin’s lifetime. In 1955, Soviet musicians began to go on tour in the United States for the first time after a thirty-year break, and George Gershwin’s opera “Porgy and Bess” was brought to Leningrad, performed by the African-American troupe Everyman Opera. A little later, the Soviet capital will enthusiastically welcome the artist Rockwell Kent and pianist Van Cliburn. In 1959, the American Exhibition will be held in Moscow, where for the first time in the USSR the works of Georgia O'Keeffe, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Edward Hopper and many others will be shown. Works in this section of the exhibition include views of New York by Oleg Vereisky and watercolors by Vitaly Goryaev from the series “Americans at Home.” And a little further on is the abstract painting of the studio “New Reality” by Eliya Belutin, as a roll call with the Western avant-garde artists invisibly present here.

In the “Exploration” section we find ourselves among the main characters of the Soviet heroic epic - polar explorers, participants in large-scale construction projects and virgin lands shock workers, and in the adjacent section “Atom - Space” - surrounded by students and scientists, in the atmosphere of the famous dispute between “physicists” and “lyricists” . Here are photographs of huge demonstrations in honor of the first man in space.

Eric Bulatov. "Cut", 1965-1966.

Section “Into communism!” ironically opens with Eliya Belyutin’s large-scale painting “Lenin’s Funeral” (“Requiem”). Interpreting the classic plot of Soviet mythology in modernist aesthetics, it turns out to be a kind of visual oxymoron and a symbol of a social project doomed to remain a utopia.

Walking through the “districts” of the city built in the exhibition halls, you invariably return to the central square - a space of free expression, artistic experimentation and new meanings that the thaw takes on from a historical distance.

Details from Posta-Magazine
The exhibition is open February 16-June 11
Tretyakov Gallery on Krymsky Val
St. Krymsky Val, 10
https://www.tretyakovgallery.ru/

Three leading Moscow museums at once, with the participation of three dozen other organizations, decided to remember the Khrushchev era, a turning point for the USSR.

Yuri Pimenov. Expectation. 1959. State Tretyakov Gallery

Three museums: the Museum of Moscow, the State Tretyakov Gallery and the State Museum of Fine Arts. A.S. Pushkin - this winter they are opening exhibitions about the most energetic Soviet era. Fine arts, architecture, science, poetry, cinema, fashion - all aspects of life during the Khrushchev era will be presented in the exhibitions. Moreover, about 30 institutions will take part in the exhibition marathon, and this is an unprecedented case in our museum practice.

Poster for the film
Cranes are Flying. 1957.
Director Mikhail Kalatozov, artist Evgeny Svidetelev State Tretyakov Gallery

The first exhibition - “Moscow Thaw: 1953-1968” at the Museum of Moscow - started in December. Chronologically, it counts down the time from the death of Joseph Stalin and the first steps towards a warming of the political climate in the USSR, which began even before the famous 20th Party Congress in 1956, where the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Nikita Khrushchev first condemned the cult of personality. One of the main tasks of the curatorial group (it included Evgenia Kikodze, Sergei Nevsky, Olga Rosenblum, Alexandra Selivanova and Maxim Semenov) was to immerse itself in the atmosphere of that time. The exhibition is structured like a labyrinth, its exhibits - and there are almost 600 of them at the exhibition - like peaceful atoms, are united into one exhibition molecule. Each section visualizes the structural vectors of the era: mobility, transparency, lattice, capsule, organics - common rhythms connect things from completely different areas of life in invisible waves. Clocks, porcelain, sculpture, clothing, photographs, paintings, posters and architectural models are included in free exhibition improvisation, pulsating to a jazz rhythm.

Yuri Pimenov. The area of ​​tomorrow. 1957 State Tretyakov Gallery

Bright, stylish dresses are emotionally close to Lev Kropivnitsky’s abstraction “Sad Irresponsibility.” The spiral modernist sculptures of Nikolai Silis rhyme with the model of the monument to the first artificial satellite of the Earth. The portrait of nuclear physicist Lev Landau by Vladimir Lemport does not contradict the wedding mini-dress made of then fashionable synthetics. And photographs of the orderly rows of Khrushchev’s five-story buildings rhythmically coincide with the geometric abstraction on the fabrics of the Experimental Bureau of the Red Rose factory. Their author, Anna Andreeva, was clearly familiar with similar works by Russian avant-garde artists: her geometric-patterned fabrics are reminiscent of Varvara Stepanova’s 1920s designs.

Mikhail Roginsky. Mosgaz. 1964 State Tretyakov Gallery

The word “experimental” appears frequently on exhibition labels. The Thaw itself was a fantastic experiment in all areas of life. The close alliance of physicists and lyricists made the most daring experiments possible, and that is why the art of that time was so scientific and scientific achievements so beautiful.

The experimental electronic music studio at the Melodiya company developed the first ANS synthesizer, and photographs of it are presented at the exhibition. The photoelectronic optical synthesizer was as elegant as a grand piano, and at the same time remained an example of the latest technology. In the 1960s and 1970s, it was used to write music tracks for films on a space theme, including Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris. And the first Soviet electronic computer UM-1 NX, produced by the Leningrad Electromechanical Plant, resembles a sculpture by the Swiss Jean Tinguely. At the same time, the paintings of the artists from the circle of the magazine “Knowledge is Power”, Hulo Sooster and Yuri Sobolev, are scientific treatises dressed in artistic form.

The thaw also means a new organization of everyday life. For the first time since the avant-garde, artists are professionally designing living spaces. In the 1960s, examples of new interiors appeared everywhere: in cinemas, at exhibitions, in magazines. Design is developing in the USSR. An armchair, a coffee table, and a floor lamp are becoming an indispensable triad of the new intellectual life. The Zarya watch at the exhibition is an example of high style created by Soviet designers. Already in the 1950s, new stylish interiors, industrial and residential, were developed in the diplomas of students of the Architectural Institute, the main trends of which coincided with world trends.

The second Russian avant-garde also flourished in the 1960s, inspired by several exhibitions of Western art in Moscow. Soviet modernism at the initial stage was imitative and yet grew into an original phenomenon. The early works of Yuri Sobolev, the future chief artist of the magazine “Knowledge is Power,” in the early 1960s still resemble the late Pablo Picasso, and the first abstractions of Vladimir Nemukhin are the dripping suites of Jackson Pollock.

Vladimir Gavrilov. Cafe. Autumn day. 1962 State Tretyakov Gallery

It is impossible to imagine the sixties without the theme of space. The cult of Yuri Gagarin and the enthusiasm for the first space flight united millions of people, which was reflected in popular culture. The curators limited themselves to a few important artifacts. Candies “Lunarium”, “Belka and Strelka”, models of monuments, an issue of the newspaper “Izvestia” with the headline “It has happened!” and several rare photographs give a vivid impression of the time when space exploration began.

American National Exhibition. Sokolniki. Convertible Buick Electra 225. July 25, 1959 State Tretyakov Gallery

Kirill Svetlyakov
Head of the department of newest trends at the State Tretyakov Gallery and curator of the exhibition “Thaw”

The Thaw gave the illusion of direct communication between everyone and everyone, and not just an illusion, but also an opportunity; it was an experience of direct democracy. Khrushchev set the tone. This dialogue untied tongues and gave freedom - in addition to the fact that rehabilitation processes began. The idea of ​​a certain universal person was formed, one of the important ones for the 1960s. If you are a collective farmer, you think about controlled combines. If you are a physicist, you are interested in art. If you are a poet, you must be interested in physics, otherwise physicists will not understand you. This happened not only in the USSR, but all over the world.

Why are the 1960s so important? Nowadays, somewhat hysterically, connections and commonalities are sought, and that era provides an example of them. Whether it's the drama of war, space travel, the rural origins of the new townspeople, or a belief in communism, 1960s man has a collective identity. Plus, the 1960s provide a variety of cultural models: reformed official culture, counterculture, subcultures... For example, subcultures of scientists and a variety of amateur artists - we show a little, including the paintings of nuclear physicists.

We use all media, because if this is a democratic model, every cup and every piece of film and documents are important to us. During the exhibition, the viewer will walk through a Stalinist film about VDNKh, and then see three performances related to the theme of destruction, taken from various Soviet films. Like, for example, the famous scene, which has become a symbol of the fight against philistinism, when the young hero of Oleg Tabakov chops down his parents’ closet. Or a scene from the film “Come Tomorrow”, where the hero of Anatoly Papanov, a sculptor, destroys his works in the workshop as not being sincere enough.
In no case should this exhibition be perceived as a list of names personifying the era. Rather, it is an attempt to formulate the main themes of this time. The first topic is the trauma of war and repression (starting point - 1953). It was very difficult to find a visualization of this theme in works of art; it was subconsciously repressed. The second is the city. This is a very important topic. The city is the main scene of action of that era, a public space, a square, a cafe with glass walls... There will be themes of dialogue between generations and international confrontation, a new way of life and a peaceful atom. We will occupy the entire 60th hall, where there were exhibitions of Serov and Aivazovsky, and the mezzanine (there we will have communism, in a slightly parodic vein). We are going to use up to a thousand items. It all ends in 1968: tanks, dissidents, exit permits.

I would really like this exhibition to develop into a trilogy: “Thaw”, “Stagnation”, “Perestroika”. For example, Moscow conceptualism is a very Brezhnev-esque phenomenon, when a man came to work, hung up his jacket and left, disappeared, he is not there. I really want to make an exhibition about the 1970s.

The 1960s have long been a kind of ideal, an icon. And now they are starting to be rethought. Contemporaries, recalling that era, all spoke about it differently. Has the time now come when we can give an unambiguous assessment of this era? Is not a fact.

On February 16, the Tretyakov Gallery on Krymsky Val takes over the exhibition baton. The “Thaw” exhibition will open here, curated by Kirill Svetlyakov, Yulia Vorotyntseva and Anastasia Kurlyandtseva, where the era will appear not only as a period of total optimism, but also in all its contradictions. It will show paintings by the flagships of the time: Erik Bulatov, Anatoly Zverev, Geliy Korzhev, Ernst Neizvestny, Tair Salakhov. It will also be interesting to compare two directions of Soviet abstraction: the scientific Yuri Zlotnikov and the lyrical Eliya Belyutin. Next to the works of professionals, you will be able to see the artistic experiments of nuclear physicists who became key figures of the era. Among the amateur artists was Academician Dmitry Blokhintsev, director of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna.

Another hit of the exhibition will be sketches of spaceship interiors by Soviet designer Galina Balashova, which were classified until recently. The works of painter Nikolai Vechtomov and sculptor Vadim Sidur touch on the painful topic of war trauma. Fragments of landmark films for the 1960s will raise questions about the relationship between private and public, the formation of a new elite and the changing idea of ​​philistinism.

The exhibition at the Tretyakov Gallery will be accompanied by a series of lectures “Overcoming Borders. Art after World War II. Europe and the USSR". The museum is preparing a festival called “Mayakovsky Square” with performances from the Sovremennik Theater located there in the 1960s and 1970s, and a film festival “The War is Over.”

Finally, in March the Pushkin Museum will present its version of the thaw. Exhibition “Facing the Future. Art of Europe 1945-1968" will collect 200 works by various artists from 18 European countries. It will include six round tables with the participation of foreign experts.

But that's not all. In February it is planned to hold a party at the skating rink in Gorky Park, where everyone is invited. The only condition: you must dress in the style of the 1960s. In April, an exhibition of household items, clothing, accessories and sports equipment is expected to open at the Gorky Park Museum. In May, the Pioneer cinema will join the festival, where film screenings will be held, as well as lectures on fashion and meetings with park employees who worked there in the 1960s. And this whole cascade of thaw events will end in June with a grand concert in Gorky Park with hits of the 1960s and with the participation of actors from the Sovremennik Theater.

State Museum of Fine Arts named after. A.S. Pushkin
Facing the future. Art of Europe 1945-1968
March 7 - May 21

From February 16 to June 11, the Tretyakov Gallery on Krymsky Val will host the largest exhibition project dedicated to the period of national history designated as the “Thaw Era.”

The era covers the time from 1953, when the first amnesties for political prisoners took place after the death of Stalin, and until 1968, when the introduction of Soviet tanks into Czechoslovakia dispelled illusions about the possibility of building socialism with a “human face.”

This period is the most important political, social and cultural project in the history of the USSR, one of the “great utopias” of the 20th century, which was carried out in parallel with democratic transformations and cultural revolutions in Western Europe and the USA.

It is no coincidence that a relatively short period of time, lasting about 15 years, received the loud name “epoch”. The density of time and its saturation with the most important events were incredibly high.

The weakening of state control and the democratization of cultural management have greatly revitalized creative processes. The Thaw style was formed, which is an original version of Soviet modernism of the 1960s. In many ways, it was stimulated by scientific achievements in the field of space and nuclear energy. Space and the atom - as the largest and smallest quantities - determined the range of “universal” thinking of the sixties, looking into the future.

The pervasive feeling of something great and new being created literally before our eyes could not help but be reflected in art. Literature was the first to react to the changing situation. The rehabilitation of some cultural figures repressed under Stalin was of great importance. The Soviet reader and viewer rediscovered many names that were taboo in the 1930s and 1940s. A “severe style” appeared in the visual arts. At the same time, some artists turned to the heritage of the Russian avant-garde, and active searches began in the field of non-figurative representation. Architecture and design received a new impetus for development.

This exhibition presents the curatorial interpretation of the processes taking place in culture and society. The goal of the project is not only to show the achievements of the Thaw, to demonstrate the explosion of incredible creative activity that the new freedom gave, but also to articulate the problems and conflicts of the era. The exhibition includes works by artists, sculptors, and directors who witnessed the changes taking place in the most important areas of the life of Soviet people.

The exhibition is a single installation into which various artifacts are integrated: works of painting and graphics, sculpture, household items, design samples, video projections with fragments of feature films and documentary footage. The exhibition space is divided into seven thematic sections demonstrating the most important phenomena of the era.

The section “Conversation with Father” examines the dialogue between generations in post-war Soviet society. It was supported by two topics about which it was customary to remain silent: the truth about the war and the truth about the camps.

The section “The Best City on Earth” reveals the theme of the city as a place of contact between the private and public spheres, when residents have not yet locked themselves in small apartments in front of the TV or retreated to the kitchens, as would happen in the 1970s.

The section “International Relations” examines the confrontation between the USSR and the USA, which determined the political picture of the world in the second half of the twentieth century. The Cold War and the threat of nuclear annihilation had a decisive influence on the cultural thinking of this time. The two superpowers competed not only in the arms race, but also in promoting their way of life at international exhibitions and in the media.

The “New Life” section illustrates the program for creating a comfortable private life, when the 1920s slogan “Artist to Production” regained relevance. Artist-designers were given the task of instilling in citizens the “correct” taste as opposed to “philistinism”, and improving the world of Soviet people with the help of the everyday environment.

The “Development” section offers a conversation about the “romance of distant wanderings”, about the desire of young people for self-affirmation and independence, about the glorification of difficult “workdays”, that is, on those topics that were used in propaganda campaigns that accompanied the development of virgin lands, calls for distant construction sites Artists and poets went on creative trips to capture young romantics.

The section “Atom - Space” demonstrates how the mass character of higher education and the development of scientific institutions gave rise to new heroes of the time - students and scientists. Since the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957, space has captured the minds and become one of the main themes in Soviet culture, affecting not only paintings or poetry, but also the design of household objects and appliances.

In the section “To communism!” It becomes clear how advances in space exploration and scientific discoveries have stimulated the imagination of artists. In the culture of the 1960s one can find many futuristic forecasts similar to those made during the first revolutionary decade.

The Thaw era was full of contradictions. The exhibition at the Tretyakov Gallery represents an attempt at a systematic study of its cultural heritage. It is planned that the project will become the first part of an exhibition trilogy, which will be continued by showing art from the 1970s - the first half of the 1980s, the so-called era of stagnation, and after that - the time of perestroika.

A unique publication dedicated to the Soviet era of the 1950-1960s has been prepared for the exhibition. The book contains scientific articles on painting, sculpture, architecture, design, fashion, cinema, theater, poetry, literature, and also discusses issues of sociology, political science and philosophy of this time.

The project is accompanied by an extensive educational program, including lectures, film screenings, poetry readings, and an Olympiad for schoolchildren. Part of the program is organized as part of the inter-museum festival “Thaw. Facing the future."

Dedicated to the era of Soviet history, which lasted 15 years. the site talks about the most important events, heroes and ideas of the time, which are reflected in the exhibition. The exhibition will open on February 16 and will last until June 11.

Yuri Pimenov. Wedding on Tomorrow Street.1962

What will I see at the Thaw exhibition?

Yuri Mogilevsky. Portrait of Vladimir Mayakovsky

The Tretyakov Gallery team worked on the “Thaw” project for four years, and approached the preparations so carefully that, according to the general director of educational and publishing activities of the museum, Marina Elsesser, they even managed to “order special weather for the opening day of the exhibition.” Indeed, it has become warmer in Moscow and the sun is shining for the second day. As for the exhibition, 500 works of art are presented here - paintings, graphics, sculpture, objects of decorative and applied art, photographs, household items symbolizing the era, inventions of scientists, documents, fragments of films. The works were collected from 23 museums and 11 private collections. That is, the “Thaw” exhibition is an unprecedented project only in its scale.

The architecture of the exhibition is also beautiful: the 60th hall (where Aivazovsky was recently shown, and before that Serov) is divided into separate thematic zones, invented by curator Kirill Svetlyakov ("Conversation with Father", "The Best City on Earth", "New Life", "Development ", "Atom - space" and "To communism!"), and in the center there is a large round square with a bust of Mayakovsky. It was on Mayakovsky Square in Moscow that the poets of the sixties once read their poems.

Why did the Tretyakov Gallery decide to hold this exhibition right now?

Tair Salakhov. Gladioli

The exhibition covers the period from 1953, when the first changes in Soviet society took place after Stalin's death, until 1968, when the introduction of Soviet tanks into Czechoslovakia finally dispelled the illusion of freedom. This time was as critical as it was indicative. On the one hand, the first post-war generation grew up in the USSR, which did not understand why they should fence themselves off from the whole world and did not know the truth about Stalin’s camps, about which the older generation, out of habit, preferred to remain silent. On the other hand, it was an era of great discoveries. Space, the splitting of the atom, the icebreaker "Lenin", Belka and Strelka, Yuri Gagarin - that's what this new society was talking about. Be that as it may, 50 years have passed since then, and now we must look back, understand what path the world has traveled during this time, and reassess values.

In her website, director of the Tretyakov Gallery Zelfira Tregulova said that “there is a definite need for such an exhibition today.” “This is evidenced by the number of projects on this topic that are being done today in Europe and the USA. MoMA has just opened a large exhibition dedicated to the 1960s; the exhibition “1945–68” opened in Brussels, which presents the art of this period without division iron curtain, which is very correct. The Museum of Moscow and the Pushkin Museum will also host exhibitions dedicated to the corresponding time. Perhaps this was the last powerful creative revolution of the 20th century, which took place in conditions of incredible freedom of those who created. And we have something to say about it ", she concluded.

Where can I learn more about this era?

Yuri Pimenov. Running across the street

Together with the Pushkin Museum. A.S. Pushkin, Gorky Park and the Moscow Museum, the Tretyakov Gallery will hold the “Thaw: Facing the Future” festival, which will be a continuation of the exhibition program. Until the end of April, lectures will be given at the Tretyakov Gallery on various aspects of the era: parallels in Soviet and Western art, reflection of Soviet life in painting (“Pop Art and Communal Modernism”), connections between science and art (“Art of the Scientific-Era”) technical revolution"). Lectures will be given by project curator Kirill Svetlyakov, one of the main Soviet-trained art critics Vitaly Patsyukov, director of the MediaArtLab Center for Culture and Art and curator of the international symposium Pro&Contra Olga Shishko and other specialists.

At the opening of the exhibition, Marina Elsesser presented a 700-page catalogue. It contains a large number of articles and studies on the history of art of the Thaw era, which can be purchased at the gallery’s bookstore.

What are the most interesting exhibits at the exhibition?

Victor Akhlomov. Dawn. Young people at GUM. Moscow, 1964

In fact, the “Thaw” exhibition is beautiful in its integrity: here cinema, photography and painting complement each other. The curators managed to present this era as overly optimistic. The art of this period is indeed particularly diverse: there are abstract sculptures by Vadim Sidur (whose exhibition “Sculptures We Don’t See” at the Manege), figurative socialist realism by Yuri Pimenov, and socialist art by Mikhail Roginsky - each of the 500 exhibits is worthy of mention.

Also on “The Thaw” there is a series of photographs by Viktor Akhlomov - wonderful photographs of Moscow and Moscow youth, fragments of one of the main films of the era “July Rain” by Marlen Khutsiev, abstract expressionism of Nikolai Vechtomov, whose paintings looked too “Western” (a comparison with Jackson Pollock or , whose exhibition was recently held at the Jewish Museum), and the “luminous” works of Francisco Infante-Aran, an artist-engineer working in the border zone between art and science.

What else will happen within the framework of the Thaw project?

Victor Popkov. Two

In addition to the exhibition itself and the educational lecture program, the Tretyakov Gallery will host film screenings and poetry evenings, where poems of the sixties will be read by Sovremennik theater actors Artur Smolyaninov, Daria Belousova, Polina Pakhomova, Dmitry Girev, Evgeny Pavlov and Chulpan Khamatova. Chulpan will read the poems of Bella Akhmadullina, whose image the actress created in the series based on the latest novel by Vasily Aksenov.

On Thursday, February 16, the Tretyakov Gallery opened the “Thaw” exhibition. The exhibition, prepared with the participation of dozens of museums, research institutes, private collections and running until June 11, makes you think not only about the era of the 1950-1960s, but above all about the time in which we live.

The question is why suddenly, on the centenary of the collapse of the empire, there are three important cultural institutions of the capital at once - the Museum of Moscow, where the exhibition “Moscow Thaw” opened in December last year, the Tretyakov Gallery and the Pushkin Museum. A.S. Pushkin (there a project on this topic starts in March) - they guessed large-scale exhibitions about the thaw, hanging in the air. But many questions generally arise here, and this is in tune with the era that came after Stalin’s death: for the first time in the country, a time has come that is conducive to the search for meaning. Fear ceased to be the defining background in the lives of Soviet people. Having ended quickly, the most free and fruitful period in the history of the USSR nevertheless gave rise to worthy fruits: perestroika was started by those who grew up and were formed during the thaw years. And even the differences in assessments of the current exhibition - it can perhaps be considered too blissful - remind us: the thaw is the time to ask questions and look for a variety of answers to them.

From Tyutchev to Ehrenburg

We are accustomed to thank Ilya Ehrenburg for the historical term “thaw” - that’s what he called his story, published in 1954 in the magazine “Znamya”. But in an article about “thaw” literature written for the exhibition catalog (this book, which presents a detailed analysis of the thaw, revealing its intrigues and conflicts, is worthy of separate study), another author appears - . His poem “The Thaw” was written back in 1948, when the poet returned from the camps and exile. Fyodor Tyutchev was the first to use this word to define the political climate - after the death of Nicholas I. This fact makes us think about the inevitable change of seasons not only in nature, but also in society, and look for traces of unprecedented cold in the halls of the Tretyakov Gallery, after which came a thaw. But there are almost none here.

Abstraction and parody

In the first section, presenting a dialogue between young sixties with the generation of parents - the curators of the exhibition (the head of the department of new trends at the Tretyakov Gallery and his colleagues Yulia Vorotyntseva and Anastasia Kurlyandtseva) called it “A Conversation with Father” - there are two topics for reflection: the truth about the war and Stalin's repressions. The memory of the repressions was fresh then - the survivors had just been released, mass rehabilitation was underway: for the first time in Russian history, the authorities admitted that they were wrong.

The theme of repression is illustrated by “Portrait of a Father” by Pavel Nikonov - the white officer Fyodor Nikonov spent ten years in exile in Karaganda. But the viewer, without finding an annotation for the picture, will probably think that the father came from the war. There is also a tempera by Igor Obrosov, which refers to 1937, and a portrait by Birger (I introduced him to the writer). The curators are worried that the Thaw artists almost did not touch on the theme of Stalin’s terror, so the visual range is limited. One can argue with them: there are, for example, prison drawings by Hulo Sooster (his pictorial “Egg” is present in another section of the exhibition). You can also recall the painting of the executed man - Muscovites saw it in 1962 at an exhibition in Manezh for the 30th anniversary of the Moscow Union of Artists, the same one where Khrushchev cursed nonconformists, and the merit, in particular, of Pavel Nikonov was that repressed and forgotten artists were generally shown there . This story apparently does not fit into the concept of a light and pleasant thaw as it was shown to us.

Nikonov and Geliy Korzhev hang next to each other - but are they both heroes? It was at the exhibition in Manege that a watershed took place: Korzhev spoke out against the “formalists” and independent artists, Nikonov was in favor. But we learn about the Manezh exhibition here only thanks to the participation in the historical exhibition of the abstract artist Eliya Belutin’s studio - meanwhile, in the Manege then they were exhibited for the first time. Yes, their works also participate in the current “Thaw” - along with canvases by Belyutin’s students and representatives of the harsh style - Geliy Korzhev,. Abstractions by Nemukhin and Zverev, Vechtomov and Turetsky, works by Oscar Rabin and Lydia Masterkova, sculptures by Sidur, Neizvestny, Silis are shown in the same space with a giant triptych by the socialist realist Reshetnikov - a caricature of Western abstractionists. The fact that these things are placed on equal terms, side by side, can give the uninitiated viewer - and does create - the erroneous impression that both were exhibited during the Thaw years. But it was not like that at all.

Before it gets cold

In essence, what we see in the halls on Krymsky Val is a digest of the era, the next version of the defunct program “Namedni”, a cross-section of a specific time layer: how contemporaries lived, where they worked, what discoveries and victories they made... Such a view, of course, has the right to exist. It is clear that victories here are more important than defeats - the country lived from good to better: “Cuba is Nearby”, great scientific discoveries, interior design of spaceships, touching paintings by Academician Blokhintsev, Romm’s best-selling film “Nine Days of One Year” (thaw films are hardly represented at the exhibition no more complete than fine art).

Image: State Tretyakov Gallery

The genre also determined the structure. Starting from the dramatic “Conversation with Father,” we find ourselves in “The Best City on Earth,” from there we move on to “International Relations” or find ourselves in “New Life.” Then “Development”, “Atom - Space”, “To communism!”. Gagarin is again our only everything.

In the center of the exhibition, the architect Plotnikov built a conventional Mayakovsky square, which provokes thoughts about poets and poetry (the sculptural portrait of the work cannot be missed). There's a lot of really great art here. The Tretyakov Gallery won the battle against Pushkinsky for Yuri Zlotnikov’s “Geiger Counter” (Yuri Savelyevich, who died a few months ago, did not live to see this moment - meanwhile, there are several of his things on display). There is also a “red corner” - a fence with works of kinetic artists hung on dark walls: Lev Nusberg, Raisa Sapgir, Francisco Infante. But it seems that there are more photographs than canvases. Happiness is in the air. The transcripts of the meetings of the Writers' Union, which condemned Pasternak and Sinyavsky with Daniel, do not disturb the romantic picture. Rain on canvases

We know how the thaw will end. The graceful form in which the curators presented the finale of a happy era cannot but be appreciated. This is a giant painting by the Karelian artist Nieminen “Tyazhbummashevtsy”: workers during a lunch break or a smoke break, one of them with a newspaper in his hands. The date is clearly visible in the corner of the newspaper sheet: August 23, 1968. The day when Soviet troops entered Prague. The second title of the picture is “Tanks 1968”. The thaw froze.

But it didn't end. The topic requires continuation. It cannot be considered closed, if only because, as has already been said, another study on the thaw theme awaits us - the exhibition “Facing the Future”, dedicated to European art of 1945-1968. The project, prepared by independent Berlin curator Eckhart Gillen, the famous Viennese actionist, and today the head of the Center for Art and Media Technologies in Karlsruhe, Peter Weibel and Danila Bulatov from the Pushkin Museum, has been traveling around Europe for six months. It will open at the Pushkin Museum in March. Independent Soviet art will be presented there as part of European art - this will be another look at our thaw. From afar.