Saratov State Museum named after A. N. Radischev

Igor Vladimirovich Sorokin

director of the department "House Museum of P. V. Kuznetsov" (Saratov)
Yevgeniy Mikhailovich Strelkov, (Nizhniy Novgorod) artist

Saratov State Museum named after A. N. Radischev

ul. Pervomaiskaya 75, 410031 Saratov, Russia

www.radmuseumart.ru

House Museum of P. V. Kuznetsov (the affiliate of the Saratov State Museum named after A. N. Radischev) - The Trace of the Garden (Imprint of the Garden)

"I was born in Saratov in the family of gardeners". This is the phrase Pavel Varfolomeevich Kuznetsov started his biographies with. This phrase had helped to get things moving to reconstruct the artist's house in Saratov. The apple orchard was planted not far from the ramshackle house in the spring 1998. During all summer and autumn in the orchard there were held a number of one day open-air exhibitions and performances which lead to resumption of the restoration work. "Building yard" required transplanting the young trees into one compact plot at the corner of the museum's area. Unfortunately, the trees have been stolen.

In March, 2001 Yevgeniy Strelkov depicted the shades of the lost trees in the yard of the Pavel Kuznetsov's House Museum. He drew them on white snow with grey ash. This land-art performance "Awakening" was made in memory of the orchard which helped so much in reconstruction of the house.

In June, 2001 the metaphysical "Pollination" has been performed. The colored pollen has been sifted onto the prints that depicted techno-instants. The colors of the pollen symbolized colors of the Saratov Art School: light green, pink, lilac, blue are the hues typical for V. E. Borisov-Musatov, P. V. Kuznetsov, P. S. Utkin, K. S. Petrov-Vodkin. Pollen was blown by wind above the future garden.

The base of the ls"Fruit-Bearing" (which naturally follows pollination) is the phrase by V. V. Rozanov: "What is to be done? - asked one impatient youth from Saint-Petersburg. - It's obvious what is to be done: if it is summer - it's time to sort berries and to make jam of them, and if it is winter - it's time to have tea with jam". By the November 17, the birthday of artist Pavel Kuznetsov, on the Saratov markets there were bought apples of the traditional Volga varieties. The friends and employees of the Radishev Museum were busy making apple jam.

Jars with jam were artistically decorated and provided with the note "recommended for tea". They were addressed to the forty four Russian and foreign museums that have works by Pavel Kuznetsov. The authors and organizers of project anticipated with pleasure the joined tea-drinking that would include participants The Best in Heritage 2005 47 from Museum in Malme (Sweden) and picture gallery in Vladivostok, museum in Arkhangelsk and picture gallery in Alma-Aty. Many of the museums responded to such a "kind and unexpected gift" by telephone calls, warm letters, taped news items about tea-parties, photos of P. V. Kuznetsov's works with some information about them. The overcoming of the numerous post and customs difficulties (made this project more actual) - acquired the spirit of kind and humane intermuseum communication.

The forth part of the project is called "The Post-Tasting". Intermuseum communication which was started in an original manner is still continues. Recently six more museums turned out to have Pavel Kuznetsov's works. All they asked for the can with jam "on legal ground".

Such a traditional thing as a jar of home-made jam turned out to be of current importance in such an aggressive event as modern art. "The Imprint of the Garden" like a magic apple from Russian folk tale revealed the present time situation: one jar was lost during sending, somewhere jam was eaten immediately - somewhere after a while, after a discussion "is it an exhibit or simply a jar of jam?", somewhere it got registered. Moscow was deeply moved with provincial deliberation, Lvov received only splinters, in Astrakhan started a discussion about museum's subject, in Yaroslavl started a festival of modern art, in Taganrog were going to make gooseberry jam, loved by Chekhov, and in Dagestan simply send for sappershellip;


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