By Tuesday, the Russian Ministry of Culture had prepared two information bombs at once. First, it was announced that Irina Lebedeva was dismissed from her post as director of the Tretyakov Gallery. And then Zelfira Ismailovna Tregulova, who took up the post of general director of the State Museum and Exhibition Center "ROSIZO" a little more than a year ago, was introduced to the State Tretyakov Gallery as the new director.
It is difficult to say what was the immediate reason for the decision by the Ministry of Culture. But in the eyes of not an insider, but an outside observer, nothing foreshadowed a thunderstorm in early February. As for distant muffled rumbles in the form of rumors, who can be surprised by rumors today?
Art critic, specialist in Russian avant-garde art Irina Vladimirovna Lebedeva, who in 2009 replaced Valentin Rodionov as director of the State Tretyakov Gallery, her main task considered “to change the attitude towards the Tretyakov Gallery in the public space and inside the museum.” Thus, in 2013, in an interview with The Art Newspaper Russia, she emphasized that, if we talk about continuing the traditions laid down by the founder of the Tretyakov Gallery, the main one is to respond to changing demands modern society on every historical stage life of the museum."
And it cannot be said that this problem has not been solved. Many remember the queues in 2012 for the exhibition of Konstantin Korovin in the halls of the State Tretyakov Gallery on Krymsky Val. Moreover, this was not the only retrospective that attracted the attention of the public. The exhibitions of recent years were highly appreciated by experts. Suffice it to say that the project "Natalia Goncharova. Between East and West", which for the first time in Russia fully showed the legacy of the "Amazon of the Russian avant-garde", was named the best exhibition of 2013 and received an award from the newspaper "The Art Newspaper Russia".
One of the most significant artistic events of last year was the exhibition “George Costakis. Allow exit from the USSR...”, dedicated to the 100th anniversary of George Costakis and allowing one to see the scale of the activities of this unique collector. It is impossible not to notice that it was the exhibition projects of recent years, made during the leadership of Irina Lebedeva, that actually became a rediscovery of the heritage of the largest Russian artists: Nikolai Ge and Isaac Levitan, Mikhail Nesterov and Alexander Golovin, Fyodor Fedorovsky and Pavel Korin... Showing one of the most legendary Korin's series "Requiem. On the history of the creation of "Departing Rus'" (2013) was done strictly, powerfully, effectively.
Again, along with the classics, interesting projects of contemporary art were shown in the halls of the State Tretyakov Gallery. I would like to refer to Dmitry Prigov’s bold and spectacular exhibition “From the Renaissance to Conceptualism and Beyond,” which was accompanied by a rich lecture program. However, cultural and educational “accompaniment” of exhibitions in the State Tretyakov Gallery is now not the exception, but the rule. And if we remember that, for example, in 2012, one and a half million people came to the State Tretyakov Gallery, then the reproaches of the now former director of the State Tretyakov Gallery for insufficiently good management and for not creating a comfortable environment for visitors look ambiguous. Yes, there is no buffet on Krymsky Val, and it would be better if there was one, but people queue not for the buffet, but for exhibitions. And somehow the queues in the cafes are invisible, which are located right there, two steps from the entrance to the halls of the State Tretyakov Gallery on Krymsky Val.
It is clear that the activities of any museum director can be discussed by choosing the option “the glass is half full” or “the glass is half empty.” But, choosing between them, one cannot help but remember that already in 2014 the Tretyakov Gallery collection was replenished with works of nonconformists from the collection of Leonid Talochkin: these works, by the decision of the collector’s widow Tatyana Wendelshtein, were transferred from the Museum Center of the Russian State University for the Humanities to the Tretyakov Gallery.
In other words, the museum affairs that are “inherited” from the old director Zelfira Ismailovna Tregulova, a very experienced and well-known person in the museum community, are by no means in a ruined state. So much the better for the museum and the new director. The Ministry of Culture’s choice of Zelfira Tregulova for the position of head of the Tretyakov Gallery is quite logical. In 2013, explaining the appointment of Zelfira Ismailovna to the position of general director of ROSIZO, Vladimir Medinsky noted that “there are only a few people of this level of competence in the country,” and expressed hope that “under her leadership, ROSIZO will become an effective body that implements state exhibition policy".
It must be said that his hopes were justified. Over the course of a year and a half, ROSIZO prepared four notable projects. This is an exhibition of Viktor Popkov, shown in Venice in the halls of Ca' Foscari University and in London's Somerset House (for its Moscow version, see "RG"), as well as the 2014 projects "Palladio in Russia. From Baroque to Modernism" (he was presented in the Venetian Correr Museum) and “Russian Switzerland” (shown in Geneva, RG wrote about it). In addition, in Moscow, in the New Manege, the exhibition “Look into the eyes of war. Russia in the First World War in newsreels, photographs, documents” is shown... But work at ROSIZO is only part of Zelfira Tregulova’s rich track record. Among the projects in which Tregulova took part are the landmark exhibitions of the 1990s “The Great Utopia. Russian Avant-Garde 1915-1932” and “Moscow - Berlin” / “Berlin - Moscow”.
Tregulova recalled working on these projects already when she was the director of ROSIZO: “The exhibition “The Great Utopia” became a real university for me and my colleagues. And another project in which the ability to do the impossible was honed - the exhibition “Moscow - Berlin.” Utopia" consisted of one and a half thousand exhibits from 56 museums, and here there were two and a half thousand exhibits, and the number of collections was off the charts. It was a very interesting project: a junction of times, generations, countries. It is impossible to forget such an exhibition, and when you look at the incredible red " brick"-catalog, it’s hard to understand how it was possible to make two projects - in Moscow and Berlin."
Zelfira Tregulova is also known as the curator of such significant international projects as “Amazons of the Avant-Garde” (1999-2000, together with John Boult), “Russia!” (2005), - “Kazimir Malevich and the Russian avant-garde” (2013-2014). Unfortunately, Malevich’s exhibition, shown at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Tate Modern in London, and also in Bonn, was not seen in Russia. As for work experience in museums, Tregulova also has quite a lot of experience. In 1998-2000, she headed the department of foreign relations and exhibitions at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, and for eleven years, from 2002 to 2013, she was deputy general director for exhibition work and international relations of the Moscow Kremlin Museums. So, one might say, an experienced “sea wolf” came to the captain’s bridge of the Tretyakov Gallery.
Help "RG"
In 1977 she graduated from the art history department of the Faculty of History of Moscow State University, and in 1981 she graduated from graduate school at Moscow State University.
In 1984-1997 she worked at the All-Union Art and Production Association of E.V. Vuchetich as a coordinator and curator of large-scale exhibitions of Russian art organized abroad, in recent years - as an assistant to the general director.
In 1993-1994 - internship at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.
In 1998-2000 - headed the department of foreign relations and exhibitions at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. A.S. Pushkin. 2002-2013 - deputy General Director for Exhibition Work and International Relations of the Moscow Kremlin Museums.
From 2013 to February 2015 - general manager State Museum and Exhibition Center "ROSIZO".
13.02.2015 22282
On February 10, 2015, it was announced that the head of ROSIZO Zelfira Tregulova became the director of the State Tretyakov Gallery, replacing Irina Lebedeva, who was dismissed from the State Tretyakov Gallery with the wording “at the initiative of the employer.” Ekaterina Allenova hastened to ask the new director about exhibition policy, effective management, the ideal of a museum director, and how to attract spectators to the museum.
Zelfira Tregulova. Photo: Sergey Futerman
Ekaterina Allenova: In an interview with TASS, which you gave immediately after your appointment, you, in particular, noted that the Tretyakov Gallery “has the opportunity to make it even more attractive and comfortable for visitors.” This phrase almost literally coincided with the wording of the Department of Cultural Heritage of the Ministry of Culture, which explained the reasons for the dismissal of Irina Lebedeva: “The Tretyakov Gallery has never created a comfortable environment for visitors - there are no cafes, shops, no Wi-Fi.” You may get the impression that you knew the ministry's motives and arguments in advance. Although I understand that you will not discuss them.
Zelfira Tregulova: You are right, I don’t think it’s possible to discuss this. But I can say that the offer to take this position was quite unexpected for me. And after I gave this interview, I sat down to read the ministerial papers at night and was amazed to discover this coincidence of wording. But you probably noticed that I talked about general issues and did not propose any specific steps. Because the first thing I have to do is to delve very carefully into the essence of the matter and form my own opinion: either confirm it or correct it.
E.A.: The Ministry of Culture has been reproached many times for looking for “effective managers” rather than scientists who can raise the scientific and exhibition activities of museums to a high level. You are known primarily as a curator - you create extremely successful exhibitions, develop their concepts (although you don’t like this word), but suddenly it turns out that in your first speech as director of the State Tretyakov Gallery you are not talking about exhibition programs and not about science, but - in unison with the ministry - about the need to make the Tretyakov Gallery more attractive and “comfortable”... And how are you going to do this?
Z.T.: You can attract visitors to the museum in a variety of ways, including exhibitions. And I pay tribute to what the Tretyakov Gallery has done and is doing in this regard, as well as in terms of science - this is, for example, the publication of a catalog of the collection, which is carried out at a very high level, or the recent exhibitions of Natalia Goncharova and the Costakis collection. I won’t go into details now, but I will say that the exhibition program planned for the future looks strong. And this is very important: we really need exhibition projects that will attract viewers. For me, the problem of the Tretyakov Gallery on Krymsky Val is acute, where the art of the twentieth century is exhibited - the period in which I study as an art critic. Every time I get there, I see a huge empty lobby and barely twenty coats on the hangers - that is, unless there is some kind of exhibition going on like Levitan or Korovin. At the same time, I must pay tribute to Irina Vladimirovna Lebedeva: when Goncharova’s exhibitions and Costakis’ collections were conceived, there was no confidence that spectators would come to them. In museum reporting there is a serious column containing museum attendance figures. Attendance is a critical category in assessing the effectiveness of any manager. And just these two exhibitions showed that people finally began to come to exhibitions of the Russian avant-garde, which was not the case before. Let us remember the great exhibition “The Great Utopia”. Irina Vladimirovna and I met precisely on this project: she was a curator from the Tretyakov Gallery, and I was the coordinator of the entire project from the organization in which I worked then. (The exhibition “The Great Utopia. Russian Avant-Garde 1915-1932” was shown in 1992-1994 in Frankfurt am Main, Amsterdam, New York and Moscow, but the Moscow exhibition, unlike foreign ones, did not include works from Western collections. - Artguide.) The exhibition in Moscow was beautifully done, even without Western things, but the halls were empty. The halls stood empty at Tatlin’s exhibition, empty at other very serious from a conceptual point of view projects of the 1990s, which revealed new names. Now the situation has changed, and we can only rejoice at this.
That is why, while paying tribute to what has been done at the Tretyakov Gallery to date, including these exhibitions, I cannot say that “now I’ll come and radically change everything.” Moreover, the exhibition plan of the Tretyakov Gallery, as you understand, has been drawn up for two years in advance, and it is very worthy, there are serious projects there. The Tretyakov Gallery is such an incredible, iconic place, and the position of its director is so responsible that I will try to be extremely careful and accurate. Which doesn’t mean that I won’t do my favorite thing—make exhibitions. This is what gives me an incredible feeling of euphoria and delight - when an exhibition is done the way it was intended. If you look at what has been done at ROSIZO over the past year and a half, I cannot say that I acted primarily as a manager. I acted primarily as an “exhibitor” and as a person who, with the help of colleagues, tried to introduce some kind of system into this organization. People started writing scientific articles. This organization from a pure operator (despite the fact that it has more than 40 thousand storage units) began to turn into a content creator. And this was my task. I saw that my predecessors focused on management and camera work, losing sight of the fact that if you don't create content, you will always remain service personnel. When you create exhibitions, this is a completely different situation, and they begin to treat the organization completely differently. Therefore, of course, I will continue to do this, although I am afraid that first of all I will still have to be a manager.
And here there is one direction in exhibition work in which it is possible to penetrate, to do something in the foreseeable future - these are international contacts: exhibitions in which the Tretyakov Gallery participates abroad and which it sends abroad, and it seems to me that the Tretyakov Gallery is interested in to bring exhibitions from abroad.
E.A.: Exhibitions of foreign art? But the Tretyakov Gallery is a museum of Russian art.
Z.T.: I am of the opinion that if there is an opportunity to make an interesting exhibition project, then you should not limit yourself to the specifics of the collection. I guess I learned this from the Guggenheim Museum, which was criticized for having exhibitions of everything and everywhere - from Africa to Russia. But it was these exhibitions that gave the Guggenheim its reputation as a museum with amazing, incredible and very daring exhibition programs.
E.A.: And still about the notorious “comfort zone”. Since your appointment turned out to be a bolt from the blue and everyone eagerly rushed to discuss it and look for the reasons why Irina Lebedeva found herself in disgrace, a parallel arose naturally with the relatively recent appointment to the position of director of the Pushkin Museum. A.S. Pushkin by Marina Loshak. After all, the idea is based on the same “comfortable environment”, where, as Marina Devovna says, you can walk and hang out almost around the clock, where there will be shops, cafes, and cinemas. And one of the arguments of the Ministry of Culture when dismissing Lebedeva was precisely that she could not become that “ effective manager", which probably should have turned the Tretyakov Gallery into an amusement park. The Ministry of Culture is close to the idea that visitors need to be attracted to the museum in precisely these ways. Do you agree with this?
Z.T.: Of course, I don’t agree with the “amusement park”. If you put this at the forefront, then there is not much difference - it is a museum or an entertainment center. I think that when Marina Loshak was appointed director of the Pushkin Museum, the logic was somewhat different, and I doubt that cafes and shops played a decisive role here. If we talk about the Pushkin Museum, then, indeed, the entrance area has changed, the wardrobe has been reconstructed, and the cafe has changed. It has become much more pleasant to go there, and the process of buying a ticket and receiving information now takes 2-3 minutes. And, to the credit of Marina Devovna, it must be said that she did not only do this. Very interesting exhibition projects have been made - for example, I really liked the exhibition of Wim Delvoye, which correctly integrated the works of this contemporary artist into the museum’s exhibition, in particular, in the hall of casts. What could be more archaic than casts? Marina creates a dialogue between twentieth-century art and classical art, but at the same time she perfectly understands that a museum, like a theater, begins with a hanger. In the old building of the Moscow Art Theater, everything is aesthetically decorated - from door handle to the hanger. I am sure that this is how it should be in a modern museum. And if you attract a viewer to a museum where he came for aesthetic impressions, then aesthetics should begin from the moment he crosses the threshold. Plus a cafe, plus the ability to quickly connect to the Internet and plan your actions or exchange impressions with virtual friends - all this will give the visitor a reason to linger in the museum building. I go to Pushkinsky with my eldest daughter when there are several exhibitions there, and we spend 4-5 hours there. You watch one or two exhibitions and you need to distract yourself, switch gears, and have a snack. And then move on with a purified consciousness. Of course, you shouldn’t make this a priority, but you shouldn’t underestimate it either.
E.A.: However, when I asked you how you were going to attract the viewer to the museum, you enthusiastically began talking about exhibitions, and not about a cafe with free Internet.
Z.T.: It is necessary to attract both, in combination.
E.A.: As a director, you will have to deal with construction, restoration, weak currents, security systems, rusty pipes, caretaker uniforms...
Z.T.:...and with the way they behave, yes. There was a very unpleasant incident with a teacher at the Tretyakov Gallery - then, it seems to me, both sides did the wrong thing. (In October 2014, art teacher Pavel Shevelev was taken out of the halls of the Tretyakov Gallery by police officers called by the caretaker, accusing him of conducting an “illegal excursion” with his students. - Artguide) These are serious and painful topics for which there can be no clear solution . The question of what is the function of the caretaker, how he should look, how he should behave and how he should be dressed is also an important question.
E.A.: Can you handle all this? Aren't you afraid?
Z.T.: I would be wrong if I said that I am not afraid. The more experienced you become, the better you understand the complexity of any task that faces you.
E.A.: The position of director of the State Tretyakov Gallery before Irina Lebedeva was held by Valentin Rodionov, and I know that he was often reproached for not understanding anything about art - he was simply a “strong business executive” who, however, understood construction and water pipes. But under him, Lidia Ivanovna Iovleva was his deputy for science...
Z.T.: Let me note, with all due respect to Rodionov, that the director of a museum should be a person who understands what a museum is. It is impossible to separate functions: here I am a business executive, and my deputy is an art critic. I believe that it is possible to combine the most effective management with the deepest knowledge in the history of art.
E.A.: Do you see yourself in this capacity? Or can you give examples of specific directors?
Z.T.: I have it before my eyes now real example- this is the director of the Städel Institute in Frankfurt am Main, Max Hollein, the son of the great architect Hans Hollein. He is also the director of several other museums that are part of the institute's system, and the director of the Schirn Kunsthalle, an absolutely incredible exhibition hall. He received an excellent education, specialized in Western European medieval art, then worked for five years as the right hand of Thomas Krens at the Guggenheim Museum, and then became director of the Schirn Kunsthalle, which he received in a state of complete ruin and with a monstrous financial debt. Hollein immediately set about reorganizing everything and creating the most interesting exhibitions. In 2001, he invited Boris Groys and me to become curators of the exhibition “Communism - Dream Factory”, which was then a rather bold decision, especially for a specialist in medieval art. When he came to Moscow in connection with this exhibition, he lived in a hotel room for 70 dollars, and was disturbed from sleep all night long by intrusive calls. And he endured it, because the organization had a terrible budget deficit, and he saved on everything, including himself. Now he is one of the most brilliant directors in Europe - and in the world, I think. He heads the “Bizot group”, a community of directors of the world's largest museums and participants in the international exhibition process. They meet every year or every two years. From Russia it included Mikhail Piotrovsky and Irina Antonova, now it is Piotrovsky, Marina Loshak and Elena Gagarina. Hollein is a stunning example to look up to. I collaborated with him a lot when he was still working at the Guggenheim Museum. He is very successful, including with fundraising.
E.A.: How do you feel about fundraising?
Z.T.: I have an extremely positive attitude towards seeking sponsorship funds. When I worked at the Kremlin Museums, around 2004 it became clear that if you have interesting exhibition projects, then it is much more effective not to spend budget money, but to offer to support these projects to a reputable company. Form a circle of friends and get very serious money. Now, faced with what it means to receive budget funding, I understand perfectly well that intuitively (and maybe not intuitively) we then chose the right way: from 2006 to the present, the Kremlin Museums have not spent a single penny of budget money on exhibitions that were held in the museum itself, including the most expensive ones. I know from experience that if you propose a very interesting project that will certainly be successful (there are such projects, they can be identified), then it is easier to get serious funds for it than a smaller amount, but for a more modest project. It comes down to the content, what you do. It's not about the stamps - the Tretyakov Gallery, the Kremlin Museums, the Hermitage, the Russian Museum - it's about what you offer.
E.A.: On the other hand, in any museum, any curator will tell you that he has wonderful treasures in his collections, with which one could make an interesting exhibition, publish the results of valuable research in its catalog, and so on. And this is indeed most often the case. Only this exhibition is of interest to only ten specialists, it has purely scientific value, it is non-commercial and people will not go to it. What to do with such exhibitions?
Z.T.: Conduct.
E.A.: Where can I get the money?
Z.T.: This is a difficult question. It’s really much more difficult to get them for a project like this. However, there is also such a tool as tools mass media. I don’t say “advertising”, because advertising such exhibitions is pointless - that’s the first thing. Secondly, now, in a situation of serious restrictions cash, much less money will be allocated for advertising in budgets. I think that there is a serious reserve here - working specifically with the media, very detailed, very thorough, individual. I have always been for this kind of work, and this is how we worked with the media in the Kremlin Museums. And the result was always wonderful. Advertising expenses, compared to the budget of the exhibition itself, were always very small, but a lot of people came and the reviews were excellent. Here you just need not to be lazy and work hard at it. By the way, the Tretyakov Gallery holds similar exhibitions, they have a whole program of such exhibitions and publications
E.A.: “The Tretyakov Gallery opens its storerooms”?
Z.T.: Yes, yes. There are really serious employees who do interesting exhibitions from the storerooms.
E.A.: What do you love about the Tretyakov Gallery collection and would you like to show to Russia and the world first of all? And in what context?
Z.T.: The question is complex. You will laugh: I love everything! Yesterday I walked through several halls in Lavrushinsky, where the 18th century - Nikitin, Antropov, Levitsky and so on... It’s wonderful.
E.A.: What is beautiful about Nikitin? Please explain to the world community.
Z.T.: I’m not talking about the show of the artist Nikitin to the world community, although “Portrait of Chancellor Golovkin” was shown at the Russia! exhibition, and I must say, he looked great there! I think that I will be ready to answer the question about new exhibition plans in some time, not very long. I know about many projects that are currently being organized in Europe, in which the Tretyakov Gallery will participate and in which it cannot but participate, since these are exhibitions in iconic places dedicated to very important points in the history of Russian art and national history. This is, for example, an exhibition dedicated to the exhibition “0.10”, which will be held at the Beyeler Foundation in Basel and where for the first time all the things that were at that exhibition are collected.
E.A.: (sighing) “Black Square” again...
Z.T.: Well, he was the main exhibit at the “0.10” exhibition, so there’s no way without him! But in Basel there will be the “Black Square” of 1929... I know about this exhibition because ROSIZO is collecting about 20 works from 14 Russian regional museums for it. The same works that participated in the exhibition “0.10”. And it seems to me that this is the most important project. And I would like to note that this exhibition is being organized in Basel, and not in Moscow, although, probably, it should have been held in Russia. Or in 2017 in London, at the Royal Academy, an exhibition related to the very important year 1917 should be held. It will present art from 1917 to 1932, and it actually has quite an interesting concept - and it does not repeat such exhibitions as “The Great Utopia”. It seems to me that this is also a project in which it is necessary to participate. However, this decision was made by Irina Vladimirovna Lebedeva. I can only facilitate the implementation of both.
E.A.: There were rumors that after your departure ROSIZO would be disbanded.
Z.T.: Oh my God, what nonsense! Nobody is going to disband it! There are many international projects planned there, in which the Tretyakov Gallery is participating, and I am going to work quite closely with ROSIZO. Moreover, now ROSIZO has new functions - it is not only an operator of exhibition projects, but also an operator major projects related to the presentation of Russian art on the Internet. One of them is a virtual reconstruction of the State Museum of New Western Art. And the second - 37 virtual museums to be posted on the culture.rf portal. We are talking about Russian regional museums, many of which do not even have a proper website, although they have wonderful collections. This is truly a very large-scale project, and incredible work has been done there. An incredible amount of filming was done, including in 3D, aerial photography and aerial filming were used. In London this September, a huge exhibition “Cosmonauts” opens at the Science Museum. The Birth of the Space Age”, which was prepared by ROSIZO, and I managed to sign all the contracts before the end of January and am going to continue to communicate with my colleagues from ROSIZO who are working on this project outside of working hours. And then we will see. The number of exhibition projects planned for this year is less than last year, for all obvious reasons: difficulties with financing and very great difficulties in finding sponsorship money.
E.A.: It was the Ministry of Culture that reproached Lebedeva for “planning a 15% reduction in attendance.” But, in my opinion, this reduction is inevitable precisely due to the fact that there is less money, and accordingly there are fewer people in museums.
Z.T.: You know that it has now been introduced in federal museums. I don’t know the statistics yet, but I can assume that this will increase attendance, but will obviously reduce the extra-budgetary income of the Tretyakov Gallery, as well as any other museum where this has been introduced. And we need to work on this too.
The biography of the director of the Tretyakov Gallery, Zelfira Tregulova, is of interest to many today. After all, this woman’s life path makes you admire her and be surprised at her numerous achievements. The lady with an unusual appearance is a candidate of art history, an authoritative international specialist, and the leader of unique projects that represent Russian art abroad. And since 2015, Tregulova Zelfira Ismailovna took the position of General Director of the Tretyakov Gallery. In her new role, the woman managed to prove to everyone around her her professionalism and her dedication to art.
Zelfira was born on July 13, 1955 in the Latvian city of Riga. True, despite the place of birth indicated in the girl’s birth certificate, she is not Latvian by nationality. Perhaps its brightness now is the most convincing confirmation of this. In fact, Zelfira Tregulova is Tatar by nationality. After all, her father is from Tatarstan, and her mother is from Kyrgyzstan. The girl’s parents met in the Russian capital, where they arrived to enter the Institute of Cinematographers. After some time, the Tregulovs got a job at the Riga Film Studio and stayed there for a long time. Here their daughter was born, whom the happy parents named Zelfira.
In those years, the girl’s father was a military cameraman at the front filming the Potsdam Conference, and her mother held the position of sound engineer. So the girl was brought up in a rather creative atmosphere. Maybe this is what prompted her to give preference to the intelligent creative profession. Having successfully graduated from school, Zelfira Tregulova entered the Faculty of Art History at the Moscow state university named after Lomonosov. The girl’s parents fully supported her desire to become an art critic and helped her in every possible way during her studies. From an early age, the biography of the director of the Tretyakov Gallery, Zelfira Tregulova, is closely intertwined with artists and their works. In 1981, the girl graduated from graduate school at Moscow State University.
Zelfira Ismailovna Tregulova’s professional activity began in 1984. At this time, the girl begins work at the All-Union Art and Production Association. Here Tregulova showed her coordinating and curatorial qualities, organizing exhibitions of Russian art abroad. A little later, Zelfira was entrusted with the post of assistant to the general director of the company. Zelfira devoted 13 years of her life to this activity.
In 1993, Zelfira Ismailovna went on an internship abroad at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, located in the capital of the United States. Returning to her homeland, in 1998 Zelfira became the head of the international relations department at Pushkin. A little later, Tregulova received an offer to become a curator of the museum where she had interned several years ago.
Just a few years later, Zelfira received a new appointment and took the post of General Director of the Moscow Kremlin. In this position, the woman was involved in international relations and exhibition work. Tregulova worked in the Kremlin for 11 years, after which she became the curator of the State Museum and Exhibition Association "ROSIZO".
But Zelfira Tregulova herself considers the opportunity to head one of the leading capital museums - the State Tretyakov Gallery - a qualitatively new stage in her life. An art critic received a new promising position on February 10, 2015.
In addition to her main work at the gallery, Zelfira teaches at the Moscow Business School, teaching gallery activities and art management. In addition, Tregulova is a member of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation. In addition, in addition to the skills of art criticism and conducting commercial activities, the woman is fluent in German, Italian and French.
At one time, Zelfira Ismailovna showed her skills by being the curator of the largest exhibitions in the largest museums in the world. Tregulova led such well-known projects as “Red Army Studio”, “Kazimir Malevich and the Russian Avant-Garde”, “Surprise Me”, “Russia”, “Amazons of the Avant-Garde”, “Socialist Realisms” and others. In each of her exhibitions, Zelfira demonstrates to the audience her own worldview, devoid of Soviet shackles and stereotypes. In recent years, the audience has been able to enjoy brilliant works in the exhibitions “Palladio in Russia” and “Viktor Popkov”, which were also led by the talented art critic Zelfira Tregulova.
The woman has behind her not only many famous works, but also numerous creative achievements and awards. For example, Zelfira Ismailovna received certificates of honor from the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, the Order of the Star of Italy for holding the Year of Italian Culture, the Order of Merit in the form of a cross with a crown, and became the laureate of the "Honor and Dignity of the Profession" award, awarded at the All-Russian festival "Intermuseum".
In the fall of 2016, Tregulova was awarded the Nikolaev gold medal. In the same year, Zelfira became a laureate of the "Statesman" award.
Unfortunately, the woman prefers to hide her private life from the press and is rather reluctant to tell stories from her personal life. But something about her family is still known.
Despite the fact that from an early age the woman wanted to have a large family and many children in the best traditions of Asian countries, her dream was not destined to come true. After all, Tregulova devoted most of her life to her own career and her favorite business. So in Zelfira’s marriage only one child was born - a girl.
Not long ago, Zelfira’s parents moved from Riga and now live with their daughter, helping raise their grandchildren.
The daughter of a famous art critic in Moscow followed in her mother’s footsteps and chose the same profession. Now the girl is married and has two children - the youngest daughter and the eldest son. By the way, each family member is endowed creative talent and good potential is visible even in Tregulova’s granddaughter, who is only 2 years old.
Zelfira Tregulova interviewDirector of the State Tretyakov Gallery Zelfira Tregulova, who realized in time “that snobbery in oneself must be overcome” , in a matter of months managed not onlychange in the eyes of visitors the image of the museum, but also the methods and style of its work. About this and much more - in an interview with Milena Orlova...
Of course, not in order to satisfy one’s own vanity. In previous years, I received everything a person needs to feel like a professional. Even when I was deputy director of the Moscow Kremlin Museums, I often appeared at various exhibitions. I'm interested.
Any director of a museum today - and this is especially true for museums such as the Tretyakov Gallery, Russian, Hermitage, Pushkin, which represent a gigantic time period - must navigate what is happening in artistic life here in Russia, and what is happening in the world .
It's never too late to learn, especially when it comes to exhibitions of such outstanding artists as Anish Kapoor or Michal Rovner, or a visit from Bill Viola. I was glad that they came to us. A conversation with such people, and especially in the exhibition of the Tretyakov Gallery, reveals something completely different.
This is some kind of new genre: you recently gave a tour of the museum for the famous British artist Anish Kapoor.
Indeed, the closed Tretyakov Gallery was opened for Anish Kapoor. This is not a figure of speech. It appeared at six o'clock in the evening on Monday, when the museum had a day off. He only had half an hour, and he decided to look at the icons.
He walked past Aivazovsky and looked carefully at his work. On the way back, I once again clarified who it was. When I asked: “What is interesting to you about this?”, he told me something that for me has probably now become one of the new, interesting points of view; we will rely on it when making a retrospective of Aivazovsky, which will open on July 28 2016.
What exactly, I won’t say now. But I realized that I need to get rid of snobbery in myself. It seems to me that in a situation of absolute intolerance, partisanship and adherence to some inert, blinkered point of view, it is very important to expand the focus and look at everything absolutely objectively, and, in particular, the exhibition in the Manege is just a little bit about this.
"Romantic realism. Soviet painting 1925-1945” in Manezh is an impressive sight. They say that you, as a curator, completed this exhibition in two weeks. Is this a record for you?
No, in two months. In general, a record. In my lectures at the university, I always say that good exhibitions take years to create. Before this, I have an example of the minimum preparation time for a wonderful exhibition - this is Palladio in Russia, which we did at ROSIZO in exactly a year of crazy, hard labor.
And here for two months. You see, the opportunity presented itself to make the first large serious museum exhibition in the Manege. This revealed a rather important story: the Ministry of Culture and federal museums do not have a large exhibition space where large-scale projects could be shown.
During the nine months that you have been running the gallery, you have been promoting the “new Tretyakov Gallery” on Krymsky Val in every possible way. They opened an entrance from the embankment, created a fashionable museum store, a new design, and a music festival in the courtyard. But the feeling is that the contemporary art exhibitions themselves are in the background, unlike other museums, which are now grasping at them as if they were some special straw that will lead them to a new audience.
No, it seems so to you. Let's start with the fact that our department of the latest trends is very active. During this time, two large exhibitions took place.
Hyperrealism was being prepared long before my arrival. This was very interesting to me, because I myself am a witness to how this movement arose. I worked at the All-Union Art and Production Association named after. Vuchetich, which organized all-Union exhibitions such as We are building communism or Young artists in the fight for peace in 1987 in the Manege, when Grebenshchikov performed for the first time, when Arthur Miller was on stage. It was an amazing time, 1987.
The exhibition was wonderful, and it seemed to me that Kirill Svetlyakov, the head of the department, and all the employees worked very interestingly both with the audience and with the designer Alexei Podkidyshev, who did this project.
The next exhibition Metageography is one of the most interesting projects within the Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art. Despite the fact that there are no big names there, and a certain number of works by artists of the 1930s, whom I myself have never seen, have been brought to the surface from the storerooms.
We attract young audiences precisely to such projects, not to mention a variety of programs, for example, the Night of Museums, where we emphasized that this year is the year of the 100th anniversary of Malevich’s Black Square, a seminal work of art of the 20th century.
A wonderful installation dedicated to Malevich was prepared for this audience - a 3D projection by the Sila Sveta studio in the courtyard. And despite the pouring rain, there was a sea of people. Sea!
How have innovations at Krymsky affected attendance?
Due to roof repairs at the Tretyakov Gallery, there was not a single large exhibition in the main exhibition hall until October 5. We opened Serov on October 6th.
If we compare the attendance of Krymsky Val for these months with the attendance in 2014, when big hall Natalia Goncharova’s exhibitions and Costakis’ collections were going on as usual, then we have a difference of only 4 thousand people. That is, with a closed large exhibition space, we were able to attract a very large number of people.
I can tell you another secret about attendance: we have extended opening hours and introduced a free environment. And she was very effective. It is important for us that people come to Krymsky Val when there are not many exhibitions there and go to the permanent exhibition. Because she really deserves all the attention.
I had in mind, rather, the image of the gallery in the same media. For example, I was struck by the interview you gave to Ekho Moskvy. You, like a snake charmer, repeated: “Serov is the main Russian artist, the best Russian artist.” What will you do with other Russian artists? How do you explain the success of Serov’s exhibition among the public? It seemed to me that this interview was a secret weapon... As the hypnotist Kashpirovsky said: “You are charged with Serov.”
I guess I'm a little bit of a witch after all. Valentin Serov is one of my favorite artists. Intelligent people in Soviet times, they loved Serov, and then there was a very strong feeling that his death was terribly premature and cut short some incredibly interesting development. And I am still confident in this, and it seems to me that we have demonstrated it.
So, I came to the gallery when they had been working on the exhibition for at least two and a half years, and I did not interfere with the composition of the exhibition one iota. But the general principle of solving the exposure seemed wrong to me. I radically intervened in this and convinced him to redo it.
So that it would be an exhibition, upon entering which the viewer would be petrified by what he saw there. Right there, right from the first hall. And at the same time it should be light, transparent, without narrow, cramped partitions. So that a variety of perspectives unfold, and works from different periods enter into dialogue.
I listen to you with pleasure and would listen and listen, but still: who came up with a video with the animated painting “Girl with Peaches”? This, of course, was funny.
The research staff resisted, but the teaser got half a million views! There are also queues for the exhibition thanks to him. Yes, some may find it funny, but in my opinion there is nothing vulgar in it. And it was done simply and inexpensively. We didn’t pour any money into it, and in general the amount spent on advertising was simply ridiculous.
Efficiency social networks cannot be underestimated now.
Of course, word of mouth, social networks and so on. You know, even the minister, going to social networks, saw complaints from visitors in line and called me on Saturday: “Why do you only have one cash register?” Yes, we didn’t expect there to be such an influx. We thought, well, two thousand a day.
And then all of a sudden, five thousand came on Saturday. On average 4350 visitors per day. The previous record for the Tretyakov Gallery was the Levitan exhibition - 2,100 people per day. It's cold and people are standing. And we would accept more, but simply the capacity of the hall and the safety standards for works limit entry into the building.
Many museums abroad sell tickets in advance online.
During a recent conference at VDNKh dedicated to the latest technologies and innovations, I was one of the speakers. It turned out to be very useful. (This is about the question of why I go everywhere.) There we had a wonderful conversation with Laurent Gaveau from Google, and now I am meeting with him in Paris, and we have already outlined three very interesting programs. And we will also cooperate with educational resource"Arzamas".
For a long time in the museum business we have been interested in multimedia and other the latest technologies. And, as always, we found ourselves among the laggards: the whole world has already realized that when you have genuine works of art or cultural monuments, multimedia is an exclusively auxiliary tool, by no means the main one.
Everywhere in the world, in museums, they are returning to speaking with the help of the original. When you live in this difficult, very stressful world, you need something with which you can stay afloat, this is a kind of “detox”.
So I came to Serov’s exhibition on Sunday because Mr. Kostin, the first person of VTB Bank, our main sponsor, came with his family. I saw people leaving the gallery after standing outside for two hours, and everyone’s faces were beaming. When I talked to journalists at the exhibition, it all ended with tears appearing in many eyes.
Won the competition to develop a gallery development concept western company, and you said at the press conference that there are no specialists of this class and level in Russia. What other museum specialists do we lack?
In principle, outsourcing is a normal system today. Those who count money are outsourcing some areas of activity. This is more efficient and more profitable than keeping people on your payroll.
What specialists are missing? Well, let's start with the most painful issue: art experts.
Surprised!
I don’t want to say that my generation was the most talented and wonderful, but when I entered the art history department at Moscow University, by the time I passed all the exams there were only 20 people left for the place. When my daughter entered in 1998, the competition was 1.8 people per place.
When I graduated from university, the crown of all my dreams was to be in a museum. The Pushkin Museum is for those who are Westerners, the Tretyakov Gallery is for those who specialized in Russian art. This is not the case now, unfortunately.
Nowadays, all the brightest, most interesting students go into other fields: they go into PR, private institutions, and educational projects.
When an exhibition is made by people who have worked in the gallery for many decades, it is quite difficult to orient them to a different type of thinking. The problem is that there is no change. Where can we find other specialists on Repin and the Peredvizhniki, who, whatever one may say, are the basis of the Tretyakov Gallery’s collection?
But even those who come to us sometimes have to be professionally reoriented. They specialized in a different art, in a different period.
Which Russian artists do you recommend specializing in now?
Please, young people, take up the Itinerants, it’s very interesting! Today is the time to look at them in a completely different way. And to reveal many interesting, relevant things, starting with the fact that this was the moment of the beginning of the art market in Russia and what it was commercial enterprise. Which, naturally, no one even mentioned in Soviet historiography.
You can study “Jack of Diamonds”, the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, Alexander Ivanov, in the end. Apart from Mikhail Mikhailovich Allenov, none of the prominent figures are doing this anymore. For me, his special course at the university on Alexander Ivanov was a revolution in consciousness, as, indeed, was the special course on Vrubel.
I dare to believe that I was a favorite student. And when I was writing my diploma, at a very difficult moment for me, he was just like a father. And he didn’t write a word for me.
Maybe the solution is to have guest curators?
Of course, we already have guest curators. For example, Arkady Ippolitov from the Hermitage. He is making an exhibition from the collections of the Vatican Museums, which we are hosting next fall in exchange for the exhibition Biblical Subjects in Russian Art, which we are doing in the Vatican.
Arkady Ippolitov is exactly the person who can expand on any most traditional topic in a completely new way, and at the same time he is a specialist in Italian art, a man of incredible erudition.
So, do you have such an inter-museum exchange?
We cooperate with the Hermitage. We have several projects, we are discussing the possibility that we may become partners with the Hermitage in Kazan and will hold exhibitions there from the collection of the Tretyakov Gallery. And we definitely need to do regional projects, because due to the current economic situation, this year we did not have a single exhibition in Russian cities.
All regions stated that from an economic point of view they cannot pull off this project. We have received a proposal from the mayor of Kazan and the president of Tatarstan, so now we will work on it.
Excuse me for asking such a question. You're talking about Kazan...
Yes, yes, yes, that’s exactly why, when they approached me about this, I said: you know, I’m not ready to open a branch in Kazan, because everyone will say that I’m doing this only because I’m Tregulova Zelfira Ismailovna, that I am Tatar by nationality.
It would be interesting to know a little about your family.
When my mother was issued a passport in 1938, she was written down as Tregulova instead of Teregulova. And thank God that they didn’t make Zinaida Ivanovna instead of Saida Khasanovna.
I had very intelligent parents, born in 1919 and 1920, they have long been dead. War, in general, does not help people live long. And my father went through the war from 1941 to 1945 as a front-line cameraman and filmed the Potsdam Conference.
I grew up in a very correct family, completely idealistic or something. In the sense of correlating everything you do with some higher truth and rules established not by the Lord God, but by humanity, despite the fact that, quite understandably, your parents were atheists. I’m rather an agnostic, and I believe that my parents were agnostics, they just didn’t understand that it should be called that way.
And at the same time, when I came home from school one day in first grade with a story about Pavlik Morozov, my mother told me the story of our family until four in the morning. About the repressed grandfather, who was taken in 1929, despite the fact that he had eight children. About how my grandmother took her children to Central Asia, how she sat at night and broke out her gold teeth in order to sell them and somehow feed the children.
My mother was the youngest in the family, and it was thanks to this that she could get an education, since in 1936 the same Stalinist Constitution was adopted, which guaranteed education even for the children of enemies of the people... Yes, her three brothers died at the front, her elder brother was still arrested, and then everywhere else.
And my children’s great-grandfather, on the other hand, was shot in 24 hours at Lubyanka as a German spy. Here. Therefore, I am terribly grateful to my parents that they tried to raise me, giving me everything that could be given, taking me regularly to Leningrad (I visited the Hermitage for the first time at the age of seven).
You are a rare example of a museum specialist of an international level, and now the notorious roots, bonds, identity are again important...
If you want to ask who I feel like, I feel like an absolutely Russian person, but with the everyday habits of a Tatar girl. When I come into the house, I take off my shoes immediately at the threshold.
For a Tatar family, if you come into the house and walk through in boots or shoes, this is an insult. I know three words in Tatar. But I am fluent in Latvian, I grew up in Latvia, and, accordingly, English, French, German and Italian (English - fluently, and the rest - as needed).
You specialized in Russian art of the late 19th century. How did you get to the Guggenheim Museum?
All-Union Art and Production Association named after. Vuchetich made several legendary exhibitions in the 1980s and 1990s, starting from Moscow and Paris. In 1990, I began working on the exhibition The Great Utopia. At that exhibition there were 1.5 thousand exhibits. This great exhibition. For me it was university and the opportunity to work with incredible curators and the great Zaha Hadid, the exhibition's architect.
You have an experience that many of your colleagues do not have - the experience of direct contact with Western museums, the most brilliant. Could you state a few things that this collaboration taught you?
Taught me a lot. I have been on long-term internships in foreign museums several times: seven months at the Guggenheim Museum in New York and three weeks in 2010 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And before that, there were two short-term internships at the Guggenheim related to the Great Utopia. And before that, work on the exhibition Moscow - Treasures and Traditions, which we did with the Smithsonian Institution.
I only realized later that this was my first curatorial project, but I want to say that this exhibition attracted 920 thousand people in the United States - in Seattle as part of the Goodwill Games and at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. Then they threw me like a kitten into water and said that I had to make such an exhibition: write a concept, select exhibits, negotiate, and so on.
Was this different from Soviet practice?
I learned a lot from my foreign colleagues: the ability to negotiate, communicate, come to an agreement, and defend my position. They are incredibly correct and polite - this is a form of respect for a person. They also explained to me that you should never be ungrateful and take advantage of free labor. If it is not possible for a person to pay, you need to say words of deepest and sincere gratitude to him. I have followed this principle all my life.
Apparently, you were also taught the secrets of communicating with the press, that your journalists cry?
Of course, a very important story is relations with the press and sponsors. At the Guggenheim Museum, I was seated in the assistant director's office (there was no other place) and I saw how they communicated with the press: any meeting was interrupted if a senior journalist from the New York Times arrived.
I also had experience communicating with sponsors of projects that the Guggenheim Museum did, in particular the Amazon avant-garde exhibition.
We probably still have this difficult legacy of the Soviet era - snobbery towards people who give money.
We all do exhibitions only with sponsorship money. The Kremlin museums made them only with sponsorship money the entire time I worked there. The Pushkin Museum was the last to receive government subsidies for large exhibitions thanks to the incredible efforts of Irina Alexandrovna, of course, and her authority.
Serov's exhibition was fully financed by VTB Bank. They are our most important partners and provide money for the most significant projects. The money is big.
How much did it cost us to bring paintings from Copenhagen and Paris! People stood in front of me here and said: let's refuse, let's refuse. Negotiations with Danish colleagues were difficult; even Alexei Tizenhausen, the head of the Russian department of Christie’s, had to be involved.
He helped determine the insurance estimate, because what the owners initially offered did not correspond to the cost of Serov’s work. And then he convinced them that we could be trusted.
In general, it seems that finding money for large projects is one of the main options for museums now.
I understood from the experience of foreign museums that professionals work in fundraising departments, but that fundraising cannot be left to only these people, that sponsors who are asked for a large sum must understand what they are giving money for, what it will be for project. There must be people - curators, art critics - who will professionally answer any question and can present the project in such a way that patrons will open their wallets. This is very important." -
