The “Imaginary Museum of Mikhail Shemyakin” has presented a number of its projects in Satka: On November 28, the exhibition “Hand in Art” opened in the Magnezit Cultural Center, and on November 26, the Mikhail Shemyakin Center (Saint Petersburg) held master classes and a lecture for Satkans at the Art-Satka. 

Students of the Pedagogical Department of Satka’s A. K. Savin Mining and Ceramic College, 5th grade pupils of the artistic department of Y. A. Rozum Children’s Art School No. 1 and representatives of Satka’s cultural institutions have attended the master classes designed to develop creative and artistic thinking as well as research and analytical skills. The classes were given by Yekaterina Topler, an art historian, the head of the press-service of the center. She offered the kids a number of problems to solve, which required creativity. One of those involved looking at reproductions of famous paintings, singing out the main elements, breaking the paintings down to color compositions, and reconstructing a “copy” of one of the paintings using cardboard, colored paper and glue. For example, the sky – a light-blue strip, water – a darker blue strip, grass – a green strip. Tall buildings would be rectangles, a haystack – a triangle, etc.

The participants of the unusual class also tried to create their own imaginary museum in Mikhail Shemyakin’s style by using black research sheets to place various images relating to the same topic, e. g. as animals, cars, footwear, etc. Then they looked at reproductions of famous paintings and tried to guest which detail Mikhail Shemyakin would single out for his research.

- “The master classes of the project “Imaginary Museum of Mikhail Shemyakin” were designed by a team of the center, led by its Director General Olga Sazonova. We tried to make them a bit more advanced especially for the exhibition “Hand in Art”, while also making them more interesting for people of all ages. I think, we’ve succeeded. The classes that were held in the cozy space of Art-Satka were exciting to young painters as well as to students that do not study art. The kids have learned a lot of new things. They expanded their horizons, immersed themselves into the world of art and got a lot of positive emotions from creating and doing research,” says Yekaterina Topler.

The immersion into the Mikhail Shemyakin’s art continued with the lecture by Olga Sazonova, Director General of the Mikhail Shemyakin Center, Art History PhD and the supervisor to the project “Imaginary Museum of Mikhail Shemyakin”. Satkans have learned about the “Imaginary Museum” movement in culture and its role, as well as about the emergence and development of the “Imaginary Museum of Mikhail Shemyakin”.

- “Interesting how the same image, symbol or form may transform in art in different historical periods and with different peoples. Thanks to the creativity of people such as the French writer André Malraux who first developed the concept of an imaginary museum (musée imaginaire), and his followers, such as Mikhail Shemyakin, we can also look at art from another angle, with more focus on the details. I’m grateful to the organizers of the event and to the speaker for an interesting talk,” said Olesya Beresten as she shared her impressions.

BY THE WAY:

The Mikhail Shemyakin Center was holding the classes at Art-Satka while the exhibition “Hand in Art” was being installed in the Magnezit Cultural Center. One of the exhibits “grew” before the eyes of Satka residents. In the park below the Cultural Center, there is a bright-red art object in the form of a labyrinth, with its curves forming a huge finger print. More details about the exhibition – in our subsequent publications.

Source: Magnezitovets Photo by: Vasily Maksimov.