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Maxine Speier Maxine Reviews Russia "Is she bleeding?" With a small cry, the woman next to me looks down over the spiraling balcony, staring with unblinking intensity at the woman beneath us. Although the suggestion of blood should evoke horror and disgust, it seems to instead be inspiring a morbid fascination and curiosity in my neighbor. And she is not alone: all along the sloping curve of the Guggenheim Museum¹s walkway, people are staring, unable to tear their eyes away from the naked woman below, a woman who is scratching a star onto her stomach. The woman is Marina Abramovic, and she is performing Lips of Thomas, a performance art piece that will serve as a finale to a week of performance art centered around the concepts of endurance and pain. It is endurance and pain that this audience has assembled to see at the Guggenheim. But not just the endurance and pain of Abramovic; the dozens of people now ogling and asking, "Is she bleeding?" have come to witness the endurance and pain of a nation. The endurance and pain of RUSSIA! Yet none of them will find what they are seeking, because the Guggenheim¹s latest exhibition does not detail the despair of a country that has struggled with cold winters and cold wars. Rather, RUSSIA! offers its audience a rare peak into a rich Russian heritage of vast landscapes, elegant princesses and flush-faced farmers. Arranged chronologically, RUSSIA! begins with a dazzling series of iconic art dating back to the fifteenth century. Dark walls and well thought-out lighting techniques serve to illuminate these religious tempera paintings and highlight their rich gold and red colors. These paintings are followed shortly by the paintings commissioned under Peter the Great, a leader who encouraged Russian artists to expand their techniques and catch up with the Western European art scene. The wealth of detail and the warmth in expression of many of the subjects in these paintings sets them apart from traditional art. In many ways, these paintings feel more alive than any of the European paintings that have long hung in the halls of the Metropolitan Museum. In addition to spiraling through time, the exhibit is also arranged to sufficiently show the various aspects of Russian life. Alexei Antropov¹s charming, but traditionalist "Portrait of Princess Tatiana Trubestkaya" is neatly juxtapositioned next to the realistic Mikhail Shibanov¹s "Peasant Lunch." When the upwards pull through the Guggenheim becomes too much, the annex galleries off to the side feature exposés on significant Russian artists, one of the most impressive being the Kandinsky gallery - a small room dedicated to Vasily Kandinsky¹s beautiful abstraction. Each piece is mesmerizing and worthy of intense contemplation and may serve as a welcome respite from the long series of portraits. RUSSIA! is a remarkable journey exploring the art of a nation that has, because of political differences, been kept from us in the past century. RUSSIA! may not tell the cliched hardships audiences were expecting to hear, but it certainly rings with a patriotism and beauty. It is a journey not to be missed and not soon to be forgotten by those who witness it. |
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