On 02 March 2017 State Fine Arts Museum, on behalf of Director Marina Loshak, agreed to a promising exhibition of 2020 with a famous French art historian Jean-Hubert Martin. It is called “the Ancients stole all our ideas” and is a reflection of the views of the curator on the relationship between the epochs in art.
Jean-Hubert Martin, born 1944 is art historian, curator of international exhibitions, and the former Director of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the foundation of which he participated as a curator of the Department of Contemporary art. He managed exhibits of S. Dali, K. Malevich, I. Kabakov, Jean Le Gac, as well as projects “Paris-Berlin” (1978), “Paris-Moscow” (1979), “Magicians of the earth” (1989). J.-Y. Martin led the museums in France, Italy and Germany. He “opened” Russian avant-garde on the West. His views are those of globalization of art.
This is not the first curatorial project by J.-Y. Martin in Russia. In 2009, he took part in the 3rd Moscow Biennale of contemporary art “Against exclusion” at the Center of contemporary culture “Garage”. He currently appears in the list of the Expert Council of the project held annually with the support of Ministry of culture of Russia and the Moscow government.
A bit of history to know what to expect. The exhibition “Magicians of the earth”, that combines the display of artistic products of five continents, attracted 300’000 visitors, however, as drew attention the curator, it resulted “talking about it everywhere by anyone”. The tagline, translated from French, reads: “the art is dead, the art lives”. It was originally conceived as a dichotomy of Western art, developed and famous, and little known, from other countries. The exhibits did not have an official national status, not acted as painters-representatives of the country.
Critics of the project were surprised with the applied methods of selection of works for the countries where they considered schools opposition to art together with schools creating art in the Western manner and so on. The result is a shockingly motley exhibition. Critics also said that the social differences on the show were not seen there, as well as overseas beauty. However, there were those critics who pointed that this exhibition has turned their ideas about exhibitions as it is and opened a new school of painting, for example, in India.
Sources: Fine Art Museum, Revue.org, Magiciens de la Terre, Centre Pompidou, Le Monde, Moscow Biennale
