|
|
Guggenheim and Hermitage Announce Long-Term Collaboration Agreement
Collaboration Will Assist the State Hermitage Museum and the Solomon
R. Guggenheim Foundation in Fulfilling Respective Missions and Achieving
Long-Term Goals. The broad strategic objectives of the alliance are to
make the each museum's respective collections accessible to broader audiences;
to share resources; to implement joint exhibition, internet activities,
publishing, and educational initiatives; and to facilitate each institution's
long-term goals. The specific projects envisioned and enabled by the collaboration
at this time are several. Most important are the collection-sharing initiatives.
In St. Petersburg, the Guggenheim will become a partner of the Hermitage
in the development of the east wing of the former General Staff Building,
a 430,000-square-foot structure designed and built in the early 19th century
by the architect Carlo Rossi. The General Staff Building is located on
the Palace Square, immediately facing the Winter Palace of the Hermitage.
In 1993 the Hermitage was granted the exclusive use of the General Staff
Building for museum purposes. For the past four years, Prof. Piotrovski
and his staff have been developing and implementing plans for the restoration
and renovation of the building as a much-needed expansion of the Hermitage.
The restored and renovated General Staff Building will house galleries
for major sections of the Hermitage permanent collections, including the
Empire Collections of 19th-century decorative arts; the extensive porcelain
collections; and the unparalleled Shchukin-Morosov collection of more
than 250 late-19th -century French paintings, including masterpieces by
Picasso, van Gogh, Cezanne, and Matisse. In addition, the building will
be the home for a major new initiative in 20th-century art that is a centerpiece
of the Hermitage-Guggenheim collaboration. Installations of postwar modern
and contemporary art, multi-media installations, and contemporary art
and photography from the Guggenheim collections will be installed in the
General Staff Building which has a surface of 430,000 sq. ft. The Guggenheim
will assist in the planning and design of spaces for special exhibitions,
in the development and implementation of the special exhibitions program,
and in the creation of a Center for Art and Technology.
Another fundamental goal of the project is to provide for the display
of classical art from the collections of the State Hermitage in the museums
of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. In particular, a suite of Hermitage
galleries in the new 572,000-square-foot Guggenheim Museum building, designed
by Frank Gehry for a site on the East River in lower Manhattan, will provide
a major platform for the State Hermitage in New York City. The programming
of the proposed new Guggenheim Museum would include the regular presentation
of work from the Hermitage permanent collections, as well as special exhibitions
jointly organized by the Guggenheim and the Hermitage. The Hermitage Program
at the Guggenheim will also include collaborations and exchanges with
Guggenheim Museums in Bilbao and Venice. Once it is underway, the scope
of the alliance will also be expanded to include Russian regional museums
under the leadership of the State Hermitage Museum.
A further element of the collaboration agreement will establish an Hermitage-Guggenheim
partnership to explore and implement museum expansion and cultural development
opportunities at various locations throughout the world. In addition to
the St. Petersburg and New York projects, the Guggenheim and the Hermitage
will jointly undertake the development of studies to determine the feasibility
of cultural development and Guggenheim-Hermitage museum expansion projects
at select locations in other parts of the world. Both institutions have
been approached by various cities with requests for them to study and
recommend cultural infrastructure projects. The Guggenheim currently operates
museums and exhibition spaces in New York, Venice, Bilbao, and Berlin.
In addition to its more than 2 million square feet of exhibition space
in St. Petersburg, soon to be augmented by the approximately 430,000-square-foot
development of the General Staff Building, the Hermitage will open Hermitage
exhibition facilities in London at Somerset House later this year, and
in Amsterdam in 2006. Together the Guggenheim-Hermitage collaboration
has the potential to present a full spectrum of exhibitions and scholarly
research projects from pre-historic times to the present. According to
Dr. Mikhail Shwydkoi, Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation, "In
view of its scale and importance, the significance of this project is
exceptional for Russian-American cultural relations, first and foremost
because this is an equal partnership, the goal of which is to introduce
masterpieces from Russian and American museum collections into a worldwide
cultural and academic circulation."
In a memorandum to Presidents Putin and Clinton that was delivered on
the occasion of their meeting in Moscow on June 2, Dr. Shwydkoi wrote,
"As a result of this collaboration, the Russian public will for the first
time have the opportunity to experience the development of 20th-century
art in a general context, and to witness the worldwide unity of the artistic
process, however unique and particular the development of a national culture
may seem from within." He added, "The realization of this unprecedented
alliance and program of long-term partnership between the State Hermitage
and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation will undoubtedly bring the humanitarian
and cultural collaboration between Russia and the United States to a principally
new level." Thomas Krens, Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation,
said of the alliance, "The State Hermitage is one of the greatest museums
in the entire world. Its collections are the equivalent of the Louvre
or the Metropolitan, but they stop at the beginning of the 20th century.
The combined Guggenheim collections range from the late 19th century to
the present, with a strong representation of postwar modern and contemporary
art, and the Guggenheim has one of the most active special exhibition
programs amongst world's museums. The alliance is highly complementary,
with the added benefit of increasing awareness between our two cultures,
providing significant benefits to the public at large."
"The realization of this long-term partnership between the State Hermitage
and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation will bring the two cultures together
on a new level," said Dr. Michael Piotrovski, Director of the State Hermitage.
"Clearly the cultural and political significance of this program will
have far-reaching effects. But more immediately, the Guggenheim's expertise
in the field of museum design and development, and its collections and
expertise in modern and contemporary art, will be valuable assets for
us to draw upon." As part of the collaboration agreement, the Guggenheim
Foundation and the State Hermitage Museum will jointly investigate opportunities
for enhancing their respective offerings to their international constituencies.
The alliance will also seek to attract direct and long-term financial
support, which will enable the expansion, conservation, and enhanced preservation
of existing collections and physical facilities.
Established in 1937, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation operates an
international network of museums, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim
Museum and the Guggenheim Museum SoHo in New York; the Guggenheim Museum
Bilbao; the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice; and Deutsche Guggenheim
Berlin. The Foundation's mission is dedicated to the collection, preservation,
presentation, and interpretation of modern and contemporary art and culture.
The Guggenheim maintains a premiere collection of twentieth-century art,
with significant holdings of Beuys, Brancusi, Chagall, and Kandinsky,
as well as major works by Arp, Bourgeois, Cezanne, Flavin, Mapplethorpe,
Pollock, Rothko, Rauschenberg, Serra, and Warhol, among many others. At
present the State Hermitage is in the process of realizing a development
program of the "Greater Hermitage Project" which includes art storage
facilities, galleries, exhibition spaces in Russia and abroad, and new
forms of electronic communication with visitors.
|
|
At the ceremony
Signing of Agreemente
Solomon
R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Guggenheim Museum
Bilbao
|