The STaTe hermiTage muSeum annual reporT

temporary exhIbItIons
had been rejected and would certainly have been rejected
in the past. Such an expansion of the circle of preferences
is an indication of a change in the public taste.
It should be added that the majority of respondents were
able to explain why they had selected specific works; their
motivation was often more precise and confident than
in the previous years. For instance, Cat Catching a Bird
attracted the viewers by its “special force of expression”,
“tense and expressive image”, “grotesque image”, “clearcut
idea”, while The Kiss was an “unusual, original presentation
of the male and female images”, with “a bright colour
scheme”, “a complex combination of form, colour, and design”,
“strength of feeling”, and showed “the artist’s ability
to convey love and conflict in simple forms”.
Among the respondents, there were also those who pointed
out the works which had provoked a negative response
alongside those which they had liked (it is to be expected
that a large section of this segment was represented by the
visitors who had a mixed impression of the exhibition –
22% of the sample as a whole). These include the sculptural
female heads, Surrealist paintings, as well as Cubist
and late works. The visitors were critical of “Picasso’s dislike
of women”, “exaggerated bodily sensations”, “anomalous
anatomy”, “fragmented forms”, “simplification”, and
“disharmony”. It is important to note that only a small
percentage of the visitors (the 3% who disliked the exhibition)
chose to speak exclusively of the works which they
had disliked. This is one of the lowest percentages during
the whole period of studying the temporary exhibitions
of twentieth-century art.
The public on the whole was of the opinion that Picasso
had gained a firm foothold in the history of art, but differed
in their evaluation of his work: for some it was “an
artistic revolution”, and for some “a creative experiment”.
The meaning of the exhibition for the viewers can be
gauged with the help of the following figures. 7% of respondents
called it “a sensation”, and 14% named it “one
of the outstanding cultural events of recent years”. Such
answers were mostly given by young visitors from outside
St. Petersburg who saw such a great number of the master’s
original works for the first time. At the same time, one
third of the respondents who already had a certain familiarity
with Picasso’s art but did not necessarily accept everything
about it described the exhibition as “a cultural event
among equally important ones”. This part of the public,
heterogeneous in its makeup, level and area of education,
was mainly represented by those who had a mixed impression
of the exhibition.
The most numerous share of the visitors (46%), who had
long had an abiding interest in Picasso’s work and had
a considerable familiarity with it, gave the exhibition high
marks for a “full, multi-faceted reflection of the master’s
work”. This category of viewers was mostly represented
by middle-aged and older people in intellectual and creative
occupations, including the sphere of art.
Judging by the impressions and evaluations quoted above,
the public has undergone a significant evolution in its response
to Picasso since the time of his famous exhibition
of 1956, which was a real “culture shock”. Picasso has long
been well-known and accepted as a twentieth-century classic.
The wider audience has embraced the artist and is now
ready to appreciate his works.
By Irina Bogacheva
cenTRe pompidou in The sTaTe heRmiTage
museum exhiBiTion. The puBlic deBaTeS
The France – Russia Year brought another exhibition to
the attention of our visitors: Centre Pompidou in the State
Hermitage Museum. Around 150,000 people saw it within
a short space of time (between 13 October and 14 November).
The visitors were mostly from St. Petersburg (68%),
female (69%), with complete or incomplete higher education
(84%), and under 30 years of age (61%), nearly half
of whom were students. Around 50% of the visitors had
learned about the exhibition beforehand and had a special
or general cultural interest in contemporary art. Here are
some typical answers which comment on the reasons for
coming: “I enjoy and strive to understand contemporary
art, including the art of France”, “the exhibition contains
interesting pieces by the founding fathers of Conceptualism”,
“I could see a Duchamp here! I’ve had a long-time
ambition to see a readymade of his with my own eyes”.
Another, equally important, share of the visitors had not
come specially to see this exhibition, but included it in their
general tour of the museum, which also encompassed the
actual rooms which housed the exhibits. It has to be said
that the majority of these visitors were not familiar with the
works or even the names of the artists represented.
The differences in the public’s readiness to embrace contemporary
Western art necessarily had an effect on the
distribution of the evaluations of the exhibition. Some respondents
“liked it” (56%), and some “had mixed feelings
about it” (35%) or “disliked it” (9%). It is evident that the
percentage of mixed and low opinions turned out to be
quite high.
The respondents were invited to justify their impressions.
Those who liked the exhibition (primarily young visitors)
picked the following response options: “I like contemporary
art”; “I generally like new and original things”. The responses
were supported with freely expressed individual
ideas, such as: “I like the different ways of self-expression
chosen by the artists, they are sometimes more powerful
than those of classical artists”; “contemporary works
of art are bold pronouncements, sometimes made at the
expense of craft. But if the painting, the image is thoughtprovoking,
it means the work was not done in vain”.
The visitors who did not like the exhibition mostly picked
the following weighty reasons for not doing so: “This is not
art”, “it provokes a strong negative reaction”, “it is out of
place in the halls of the Hermitage”. More elaborate evaluations
given by this category of visitors, quoted under “a different
opinion”, were along the same lines (“the disregard
for structure and the clear rules developed over centuries
is abhorrent”). These were primarily the answers given by
older and middle-aged St. Petersburgers, including both
frequent and infrequent museum-goers, those who saw the
exhibition by chance.
It has already been noted that one third of the respondents
had mixed feelings about the exhibition.
But it is also important to point out that the majority of
answers were not overtly negative. The visitors would more
often say something like: “I am not familiar with the art
represented here, but I was happy to be introduced to it”,
“I am indifferent to it, but I approve the policy of the museum
of introducing visitors to the art we are not familiar
with”. A much less frequent answer was “I am interested
in contemporary art, but I don’t think this exhibition is
a success” (what was meant was that there were “not enough
exhibits” to have “a full understanding of the evolution of
twentieth-century French art”). These respondents were
mostly middle-aged residents of St. Petersburg and young
people from elsewhere who were in the Hermitage for the
first time ever or in a long while.
The artistic preferences of the visitors yielded an interesting
picture. The favourite which emerged was Roman Opalka’s
work From 1 to ∞. Fragment. The reasons for preferring
this painting include “a concept which is easy to grasp” and
“a clear way of visualizing an idea”. Among other preferred
works were those by Georges Mathieu, Yves Klein, and Martial
Raysse, selected for a number of aesthetic reasons (“an
elegant design”, “the colour scheme”, “an attractive female
face”, “an unusual technique”, “the effect of combining
blue and gold”).
It is a common phenomenon for exhibitions of contemporary
art when the same works are both liked and disliked
by the public. Some of these split the visitors into “admirers”
and “haters”. In this exhibition, such works were those
by César, Heimo Zobernig, and Robert Filiou.
The least popular work was Painting (Manifesto 3) by Daniel
Buren. It occupied the first place in the list of works
disliked by the public, and it came last in the list of works
liked by them. The painting was met with a lack of understanding
(“I couldn’t see the meaning of it”) and provoked
banal associations (“It looks like a mattress”).
The study has once again confirmed a well-known fact:
mass audiences prefer the works which are easier to understand
and fill the need for aesthetic pleasure to a greater
extent.
By Irina Bogacheva
temporary exhIbItIons
“The wind in The pines…” 5,000 YeaRs
of KoRean aRT. fRom The naTional
museum of KoRea exhiBiTion
The exhibition was clearly of interest for many visitors to
the Hermitage; it was attended by 550,000 people. The majority
of the visitors came from St. Petersburg (59%), from
other Russian cities (37%, a third of whom came from
Moscow), and from the former Soviet republics (6%).
The prevalence of local visitors in summer was caused by
the desire to see the exhibition they were interested in,
which was corroborated by the cited reasons for coming:
82% of local visitors said they were interested in the exhibition
and specially in the culture of the East.
Young people predominated in the break-up of the visitors,
like in many temporary exhibitions: 53% of local residents
and 54% of those who travelled to see it; there were
high percentages of middle-aged visitors (34% and 37%
respectively); professionally they were students, school and
university teachers, economic and financial sector employees,
intellectuals with a background in the sciences and
humanities, and people of other occupations.
The general impression left by the exhibition was in most
cases clearly positive (97%). Impressions varied between
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