|
October, 3—17 2007
Exhibition of Rezo Gabriadze, playwright, director,
artist, the author of scripts for the films “Don’t be sad”,
“Mimino”, “Kin-dza-dza”, the author of monuments to
Chizhik-Pyzhik in Fontanka and Mayor Kovalev’s nose in
Voznesensky prospect was devoted to his friend, the writer
Andrei G. Bitov. Exhibition opening was one of the events of
the International Forum “Empire. Four dimensions of Andrei
Bitov”.
The exhibition demonstrated Gabriadze’s works from the
series “Pushkin-butterfly. Metamorphoses” and “Pushkin’s
photos”.
Most of plots of this graphical Pushkin’s story once
created and permanently replenished by the Georgian master
are based on Bitov Pushkin’s story which is always added by
the Russian writer. The exhibition witnesses about the
unique artistic union, long and happy coincidence. Rezo
Gabriadze has Pushkin’s light pen, clear thought, living
breath, temperament, joyful world perception, freedom. In
that manner, live and free, the artist saw Pushkin in the
light of long friendship with Andrei Bitov.
To open the secret, “Pushkin-butterfly. Metamorphoses”
represented pages of a manuscript of the fairy-tale about
how a poet in love starts his trip to find a beauty Nataly,
faces incredible adventures and difficulties, comes to
Georgia and … becomes a butterfly. The fairy-tale is a joint
project of Bitov and Gabriadze. The International
Association “Live classics” is going to issue a small
circulation of this manuscript. It is not in vain that the
first meeting with the reader and spectator of the book
“Pushkin-butterfly. Metamorphoses” took place in Nabokov’s
museum because Puskin was the favorite writer of Nabokov and
his second hobby (after literature) was butterflies.
The series “Pushkin’s photos” consisted of illustrations
to A. Bitov’s story with the same name. There were no photo
cameras when Pushkin lived, we don’t know details of his
appearance. Bitov’s story character traveled to the past to
take pictures of Pushkin. The photographer in Gabriadze’s
drawings reminds A.Bitov when he wrote in Toksovo “Pushkin’s
photo”, wore glasses and liked to take pictures of his
relatives and friends.
In 2007 A.Bitov celebrated his 70th birthday. The
exhibition showed presents of Rezo Gabriadze to the former
anniversaries of A.Bitov: sculptural portrait of A.Bitov
(bronze,1997) and a doll portrait of A.Bitov in a Circassian
coat and a felt cloak (1987).
The exhibition also shows for the first time Nabokov’s
portrait — a gift of Rezo Gabriadze to Nabokov’s museum in
St. Petersburg.)
|
