ZURAB TSERETELI: THE ART CREATES KINDNESS

“Thank you for a kind offer to work on painting decorations in the UN Organisation along with the Russian artist Zurab Tsereteli. This is a happy acquaintance with a grand master which unites the talents of both an artist and an organiser. This doubles an energy of Zurab’s works and beginnings”.

Salvador Dali to Kurt Wildhaim. 1979

As one could mention, preparing our “portrait gallery” in the magazine, we do not have any preferences except one: “Truth is born like a heresy and dies like a banality”. It will be much easier to tell for hundreds times about well-known activities of some celebrities. In the meantime we want to open for a reader not only so called facade sides of someone we write about, but to show the features which characterise him like a person. The art should become close to life – that’s the view by the famous artist and public figure Zurab Konstantinovich Tsereteli. We absolutely share his opinion after interviewing him.

What a popular stereotype of an artist in a velvet beret before an easel in his studio! When the first rain drops start hatching asphalt on Bolshay Gruzinskaya Street and May wet leaves are so picturesque as never, we enter under the vaults of the old Moscow mansion. This is the workshop which is crowned by the ancient emblem (the artist’s parents belonged to the Georgian nobility), but where is maestro himself? Zurab Konstantinovich Tsereteli who celebrated his 70th anniversary in January this year, President of the Russian Academy of Arts, People’s Artist of Russia, Honorary Professor of the Moscow State University, the Chairman of the Union of Designers of Georgia and a founder of the first Russian Museum of Modern Art, is in his office on Prechistenka Street, as usual at this time.

The artists’ studios all over the world are similar to each other because one can smell oil paints there and canvases are piled along the walls leaving only narrow corridors to go through. The sculptors and monumental artists work in different manners. But here everything is mixed up – sculptures, graphic art, painting, photographs which show the artist with his friends – Catherine Deneuve, Mark Shagall, Robert Raushenberg and Robert De Niro. You cannot avoid a feeling that there are several artists working in one workshop simultaneously: it’s hard to imagine that one person can have so many talents and energy. Models of the monument to the victims of the tragedy happened on September, 11, which will appear in Jersey soon, occupy a special place: the majority of New York firemen and saviors, who lost their lives in the destroyed Twin Towers, lived in this district. According to Zurab Konstantinovich, water in the monument serves as the main symbol of rescue and purification; its conceptual image has passed through the numerous sketches to the final design.

The major part of graphic art suffered during the fire in the old studio, have been restored by the artist as bronze reliefs. The same technique is used in a series of portraits of the artist’s contemporaries, starting from Vladimir Vysoztskyi. Glaring enamels in suprematism manner from a new series of colored graphics by Zurab Konstantinovich immediately capture your attention. A journey around the workshop is finished in its ‘epicentre’ – in a spacious studio with the upper light and a painting on an easel which needs to dry before being put in a frame: a portrait of a Tbilisi citizen who appeared, perhaps, from the artist’s childhood memories, suddenly penetrates you with some sadness. A little bit aside, on a table near the fireplace, old chess look beautiful – the master likes to win playing chess with his guests.

One more discovery – a new sculptural group “An Apple” in the center of the huge hall with a glassy dome in the Gallery of Arts on Prechistenka Street. The gigantic atrium is full with multiple sculptural groups–events; as well as the interior of spacious office in another part of the building, where Zurab Konstantinovich works, is full of life in all its manifestations. Life has never stopped even for a minute here – people come in and out, share their ideas and ask an advice, congratulate or interview. The owner of the cabinet sits with everyone over a long table covered with green cloth, and does not stop drawing something in his album.

Zurab Konstantinovich’s activities regarding the support of the arts in the country is dealt to a big extent with the rebirth of the traditions of the Russian Academy of Arts which will celebrate its 250th anniversary in 2007. Besides the Museum of Modern Art, opened in 1999 on Petrovka Street, due to Tsereteli’s initiative, the Museum of the Academy of Arts have been opened on 19, Prechistenka. Zurab Konstantinovich intends to transform it into an international gallery like Louvre in Paris or Metropolitan Museum in New York in the future. Paintings by the best classical and modern artists are to be exhibited there. The consequences of this change will have an enormous influence on the Russian culture as well as on economic rise of the Academy of Arts. The French and Spanish Academies of Arts and also British and Brazilian artists have already applied to Tsereteli with a request to host their exhibitions in the Museum on Prechistenka. “Germans and the Academy” exhibition will take place here in the nearest future.

The opening of the restaurant in the Gallery of Arts on Prechistenka is something more than a pure demonstration of Georgian hospitality and a gesture of a wide soul. Zurab Konstantinovich believes that a museum in a real meaning of the word always needs to have a place for unofficial and friendly meetings, music concerts and poetry parties should also take place here. The art is the best mediator in developing relations between people and nations. The language of the art is the language of kindness which is so important in diplomatic links between nations. According to Tsereteli, today every artists – from a grey haired classical master to a young avant-gard painter – can not only have a personal exhibition in the Gallery on Prechistenka, but should enjoy a banquet to celebrate its opening, arrange an auction or just sit with friends in the restaurant. The artist believes that the art should finally come down from heavens to the earth and talk to the visitors a common language.

Zurab Konstantinovich is sure that an active preparatory work for the anniversary of the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg is important, first of all, from the point of view of an outstanding contribution on behalf of the graduates of this oldest art school in Russia to the world culture. High standards of education in this Academy influenced a lot the quality level of European paintings. “Pensioners” of the Academy, such as Karl Brullov and others, who went to Italy for a probation period, not only absorbed the secrets of Renaissance masters, but enriched the world art with their famous canvases. Nowadays these traditions are being reborn. For the first time after 80 years interval, the reconstruction have taken place in well-known premises of the Academy of Arts on the bank of Neva River. 45 000 square meters of the facade and 25 000 square meters of roof have already been renovated. The bronze cross has been erected on its usual place on the dome of the Academic Church. The statue of Minerva who crowns the arts and sciences has been mounted on the top of the main entrance; initially the statue was in place in the times of Catherine the Great. In a round courtyard of the Academy, a monument to Ivan Shuvalov, the founder of Academy, was placed last May. The monument was made and paid for by Tsereteli himself and was given to St. Petersburg as a gift on its 300th anniversary. In the nearest future the courtyard is to be covered with a glassy dome and cellars of the Academy are to be transformed into exhibition halls and recreation area.

Presidium of the Russian Academy of Arts pays a lot of attention to the memory of those who gained fame to the Russian art. Memorable plates are put on the buildings in France and Italy where Russian classical artists lived; their graves are taken care of. “The Academy sleeps less but moves more”, – Zurab Konstantinovich jokes.

The history of Zurab Konstantinovich’s acquaintance with Mercedes-Benz brand is quite notable. In 1979, when the artist worked and teached in the USA and officially refused to receive a payment for his two sculptures in Brokport, State of New Yorkd, the citizens presented him a Mercedes-Benz 450. The car, designed for America, was brought to Russia later, it served to its owner with faith and truth and brought plenty of pleasure (Zurab Konstantinovich has always prefered to drive himself). Finally the artist gave this car to the Moscow Museum of Classical Cars. But Tsereteli never changes his first choice: in winter he uses G-class in the city (looks like “Black Square” by Malevich, as Tsereteli puts it) and in summer – an official S-class. There is also a sporting compartment which the artist drives visiting outscirts ‘objects’ during the weekends, when there are not too many cars on roads. The artist admits that he likes fast driving but his friends ask him sometimes to drive faster. In the Tsereteli’s collection, there is a blue Mercedes-Benz 280 made in 1975 which used to belong to Leonid Brezhnev.

“I am happy because now we have traffic jams in Moscow, – Zurab Konstantinovich confesses, – they mean that people are becoming rich. In the past, when I ‘flew’ around Moscow on my two-doors car I felt sorry for people who had to walk or wait for a bus. Now I enjoy looking at happy faces of young girls in expensive cars in traffic jams.So, let the traffic jams be – for the happiness of Muscovites”.

The original image of an artist in a velvet beret finally has lost its positions in his study with antiquarian furniture arranged with much taste, paintings and sculptures. Zurab Konstantinovich gets up to interrupt the interview – a delegation from Iran is waiting for him in the Museum. We feel unreal like in his studio – a man in his 70s cannot look so sportive and manage to do so many things. As a strategic of an international scale, he will always evoke more different attitude in the society the more he will do for it: these are the laws of the history.