Art exhibitions at the Mariinsky

Almost from the moment it first opened its doors, the Concert Hall of the Mariinsky Theatre has also functioned as an exhibition space. The art exhibitions, which are regularly updated, afford concert audiences the chance to add to their musical impressions with physical images by seeing interesting works in various genres and styles. Here one can see both works by established designers as well as children’s drawings that are direct responses of our younger audiences – the Academy of Young Theatre-Goers – to the operas and ballets they have seen.

The current exhibition hosts works by three artists. First are the early photographs of photographer Alfred Eberling – a fashionable Russian portrait painter of the early 20^th century who was renowned for his images of the great Russian ballerinas Anna Pavlova, Mathilde Kschessinska, Tamara Karsavina and Marina Semyonova. Few, however, are aware that Eberling was not just a portraitist but a great amateur photographer as well: he may truly be called St Petersburg’s very first “street” photographer. Having lain in the bowels of an old studio for an entire century, survived the revolution and world wars and somehow miraculously survived until the present day, Eberling’s photographs have come back to life, telling us of real life in the Russian capital at the turn of the  20^th century. The exhibition A Photographer of the Silver Age. Photography by Eberling the Artist is on display on the second floor of the Concert Hall.

The second exhibition features etchings and graphics by St Petersburg artist Pavel Tatarnikov, a master book illustrator and artist of several original graphic series based on works of literature. These include drawings, etchings and lithographs for albums of Indian classical drama, medieval Korean poetry, works by Latin American authors, Thomas Mann’s novel Lotte in Weimar and Mikhail Lermontov’s A Hero of Our Time. In many of Pavel Tatarnikov’s works the world of medieval Russia and Europe comes alive. Such, for example, are his works on Biblical themes, seen as it were through the prism of an ancient Russian artist, and the jolly and animated drawings for Honoré de Balzac’s Les Contes drolatiques that imitate frivolous medieval engravings for fables. Not wishing to illustrate texts directly, in his works the artist created his very own fantasy world in which imagination and reality are magically woven together. The exhibition The Phantasmagoria of Pavel Tatarnikov is on display in the foyer of the third floor of the Concert Hall.

On the fourth floor are landscapes by Grigory Pavlychov, a contemporary young artist who seeks out creative solutions by blending painting and graphics.