06.06.2018 – 01.07.2018
Triumph Gallery, Moscow
coordinator
Sofiya Kovaleva
Triumph Gallery presents The History of The National Football exhibition of one of the leading participants of international art community in Berlin and the founder of The Museum of Silence (Museum Der Stille) Nikolay Makarov. Moved from Moscow to East Berlin in 1975, Makarov was struggling for establishing a dialogue between Russia and Europe.
His art unites two greatest techniques: the art of traditionalRussian icon-painting and the one of traditional European painting school. The latter the artist has got from his mentor and teacher Werner Klemke in Berlin Academy of Arts, and then he has had a chance to learn a lot from Rudolf Hausner in Vienna . They both gave compound author painting technique, thanks to which the art of Makarov became popular and acknowledged not only in Europe, but in America and, of course, in Russia.
In the exhibition The History of The National Football, that consists of a series of painted portraits of the Russian rulers and landscapes, the artist tries to find the answers to the traditional questions of the Russian intelligentsia: what is Russia and where is it going to? Historically, these questions were connected with the singularity of the Russian path, combining the Eastern spirituality and the Western rationality. According to the artist, the football became the main crossing point of these two streams as it is a gamethat has gone beyond itself turned into a cult for millions of people around the world, seeking to live in a beautiful and united world.
As the titles to his works, Makarov uses quotes from the well-known book An Encyclopedia Of The Russian Soul written by Victor Erofeev. The writer has created a poetic text especially for the exhibition — a large metaphor of 400-years history of the country, that was embodied in football match between Asia and Europe, that began during the reign of Peter the Great as a «broken window» and continues to these days with unequal score.
