The opening of the exhibition "Prometheus of the Space Age"
On September 17, 2020 at the Gallery of Contemporary Art of the Pushkin Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan the opening of exhibition "Prometheus of the Space Age" will take place, dedicated to Bulat Galeev - an artist, inventor and scientist who, since the 1960s, began to create light and music performances, films, as well as projects subsequently related to experience creating art based on new technologies.
17:30 - press approach with curators Kirill Svetlyakov (Head of the Department of Newest Trends at the State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow) and Yanina Prudenko (Kiev, Ukraine)
18:00 - exhibition opening ceremony
Venue: Gallery of Contemporary Art, Pushkin Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan, st. Karl Marx, 57
The work by Bulat Galeev is an exceptional case when an artist was able to realize his ideas within a scientific and educational institution. In Soviet culture, such spheres as science and art existed separately from each other, and only individual enthusiasts could combine them in experimental projects that determined the emergence of modern forms of media art.
The image of Prometheus - a mythological character, protector of people, who taught them how to handle fire - was chosen at the beginning of the 20th century by composer Alexander Scriabin for the title of the first piece of music with a light part. The question "How to play this part?" subsequently worried many Soviet light artists and light musicians and often became the subject of heated discussion between them.
It was Kazan “Prometheus” that became the “assemblage point” for all Soviet artists, musicians, engineers with synesthetic abilities. These unusual people who could "see" music and poetry gathered to discuss the synthesis of art and science in a close circle of like-minded people created by Bulat Galeev in Kazan.
In his practice, Galeev may have been the first person in the USSR to demonstrate the experience of networking: he exchanged ideas by correspondence with artists from different countries, and never felt isolated or on the periphery of the world process. At the exhibition, with help of infographics and various kinds of documentary materials, this international network, created by Galeev, will be presented, capable of turning Kazan into one of the centers of contemporary art.
The exhibition features over a hundred objects, models, films and other artifacts related to the activities of the Prometheus group, as well as works by Konstantin Vasiliev, Nadir Almeev, Oleg Sokolov, Alexei Anikeenko and Vyacheslav Koleichuk, who at various times communicated or collaborated with Galeev.
One of the main events of the exhibition will be reconstructed light-kinetic model of the building for the new revolutionary art, invented by Grigory Gidoni in 1927 and recreated at the initiative of Bulat Galeev for the 1987 exposition entitled "Monument to the Gidoni Revolution". It is noteworthy that the exposition of the festival at the end of the 1980s was organized in the same hall where the exhibition "Prometheus of the Space Age" will now open.
The exposition presents paintings from the Museum of Konstantin Vasiliev (Kazan), as well as from private collections.
The partners of the exhibition were CSK "Smena", Creeptone Media, the Fund for the Support of Audiovisual and Technological Art "Prometheus" after B. Galeev.
For all questions: 8 953 400 79 75, PR Department, Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts