Reduced heads

On February 10, Irina Lebedeva was announced from the post of director of the Tretyakov Gallery, which she led since 2009, and the appointment of the new-Zelfira Tregulova, who had previously headed the State Museum and Exhibition Center Rosiso. At the same time, Lebedeva was proposed to remain in the Tretyakov Gallery as a researcher.

Such a surprise from the Ministry of Culture-for someone pleasant, not very good for someone-immediately began to actively be discussed. On the one hand, the next major rearrangement is a logical continuation of a long -standing policy: in recent years in the field of state museums and exhibition centers, if not indigenous, then at least a very serious restructuring. The processes planned and partly launched during the time of the former managers of the Ministry of Culture, under Vladimir Medinsky, began to force. It is no secret that the state wants to leave this sphere financially, but at the same time stay there as a gendarme, which decides what is possible and what is impossible. That is: look for the money yourself, we will give you less, but you will coordinate your exhibition policy and other important issues with us in one form or another. All administrative decisions revolve around this general idea - both large bosses and leaders are less appointed or removed exclusively for this reason, using all other claims as auxiliary levers. In this sense, so different in rhetoric of the department of Medinsky and Kapkov, in this sense, act the same way.

In a situation of isolation of Russia at the head of the museum, there should be a person with an international reputation, and there are practically no such, while agreeing to cooperate with the current government.

On the other hand, the opacity and surprise of decision -making, widely practiced in the Russian authorities from the very top to the bottom, give rich food for speculation to fans to study the internal structure of the state apparatus. In fact, the only explanation presented by the ministry in connection with the shift of the director of the museum was the streamlined wording “on the initiative of the employer”, which later acquired a different form- “because of a number of claims to its work” . They are partly called, but not the head of the department, but through the director of the Department of Cultural Heritage of the Ministry of Culture Mikhail Bryzgalov, whose words the Ministry of Culture quoted : “The construction of the 2nd corps, scandals around the museum are tightened, and a comfortable environment for visitors, schoolchildren, students, and methodologists has not been created. The main art museum of the country, Russian art has not become a methodological center. The plans include a reduction (!) Attendance by 15 percent. ” Vladimir Tolstoy, Culture Advisor under the President of the Russian Federation, said that “claims arose for a long time” to Lebedeva “as a manager”.

The version appeared that the direct reason was the project of the new museum corps at the intersection of Kadashevskaya embankment and Lavrushinsky Lane (about one side of this project - the facades - Coleta.ru wrote earlier ), which “surfaced” among the high -cost construction and, among others, was sharply criticized by Tatyana Golikova, the head of the County Chamber. The story of too expensive projects reached the president, and from there went down to the Prime Minister to make administrative decisions-the head flew. According to another version , the leadership of the Tretyakov Gallery conflict with the Moscow Department of Culture and personally his head Sergei Kapkov , who, almost like Tregulov, is loved at the same time in the Moscow cultural environment, a foreign press and in the offices of far from cultural authorities. In addition, they recalled the story with an anonymous letter of the workers of the Tretyakov Gallery to the then Minister Avdeev and friction in relations with the Russian Orthodox Church.

As for the two personalities directly - the previous and new -naked directors, the opinions were divided. Tatyana Levina, who has been working in the museum since 1980 (and for employees of the gallery, this rearrangement was a surprise ), believes that “the dismissal of Irina Lebedeva is very, very bad. This dismissal is also a link in a fucking chain. ” Galerist Marat Gelman, on the contrary, believes that "this is very good." He recalls that Tregulova took part in the preparation of export exhibitions “hits”, such as “Great Utopia” (1992-1993), “Avangard Amazons” (1999-2001), etc. Also, according to Gelman, “the ministry understands that in a situation of isolation of Russia at the head of the museum there should be a person with an international reputation, and there are practically no such consonants with the current authority. And Zelfira has always worked in government agencies - museums of the Kremlin, “Rosiso”. ”

This dismissal is also a link in a fucking chain.

If this hypothesis is true, then the story of the HTG facades, because of which Lebedev was supposedly fired, has a symbolic continuation-as well as the initiatives of Kapkov (well, or as a “manifesto” ), the activities of the Tregulova should become a facade for the West and alarmed intelligentsia. And what happens under this cover is another matter. As the art critic, an employee of the scientific department of the Garage Museum Valery Ledenyov, “in anti -crisis plan , reduce the financing of culture by 10% and an increase in the infusion of claims (to Lebedeva. - Ed .) On“ delaying ”the construction of a new corps and the absence of a“ comfortable environment for visitors, students, students, and methodologists ”look very much. absurd. " Probably, the government really believes that if you appoint a person who is sympathetic as the director of large state institutions such as the Tregulov, it is easier to implement “unpopular” solutions.

Indeed, the majority expects from the new director not abbreviations and following the official cultural policy, but “all the best” - for example, the reconstruction of premises in the Crimean shaft and interesting exhibitions. However, you should not wait for sharp changes in this area, small shifts are more likely to be possible. “It is no secret that the Tretyakov Gallery is more proud of already achieved, balanced and counted than focused on decisive museum passages and innovations,” Ledenyov notes. - The constant exposition has not changed for many years, the emphasis in it is placed with a unambiguous hierarchy, work from the storerooms is rarely exhibited and not even presented on the site. In the bins of the museum, after all, amazing things are sometimes hidden - for example, from the art of avant -garde. As in the storages of other museums, the contents of which we do not see almost never. These things could be shown together, make joint inter -museum exhibitions, make up for gaps and blind spots, etc. All this could have passed under the auspices of the Tretyakovyk - although it smacks of a critical discussion. “Appropriate”, as we are often made to understand, including the current decision, not everywhere and not always. ”