Exhibition "Homages"

About exhibition

Hommage (from French hommage — gratitude, a tribute) in art is a work of imitation, a sign of admiration and respect for another artist, musician, writer, or other figures of culture, science and the arts. Often a homage is devoted not to the life and oeuvre as a whole but to an individual work by the author. At the exhibition "Homages," curated by Natalia Sidorova, works by more than forty contemporary authors — mainly from Moscow and St. Petersburg — will be presented in a variety of techniques and directions: painting, graphic art, reliefs, mosaic, sculpture, ceramics, collages, assemblages, textile works with embroidery, installations, and photography. Visitors will see homages to Alexander Pushkin, Sandro Botticelli, Kazimir Malevich, Martiros Saryan, Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, Vincent van Gogh, Amedeo Modigliani, Henri Matisse, Erik Bulatov, Andrei Tarkovsky, Maxim Gorky, and others. Some works significantly broaden the notion of homage: they refer not to specific authors but to original sources and traditions in art — Roman mosaic (mosaics by Felix Buch and Anna Zamula), Vladimir–Suzdal white-stone carving (sculptures by Yulia Glebova and Natalia Ovsienko), peasant brush painting (ceramics by Natalia Zvonareva), and the Vologda distaff (paintings by Alexander Pesterev). At the same time the organizers emphasize the playful, unserious nature of the exhibition project, the lightness and freedom of the artists' self-expression, which are not without humor and irony. For example, the exhibition includes Maria Arendt's dedication "To All the Beautiful Girls of Planet Earth," a dedication to the gallery "Sad" and to Peredelkino from the Messerer family, and a dedication to the potato in Denis Trusevich's project "Potato Museum".