Experiment/3KcnepMMeHT, 7 (2001), 265~73.

THE "CONTEMPORARY ART" EXHIBITION (ST. PETERSBURG, 1903): FOUR REVIEWS1

"Contemporary Art''2 In St. Petersburg, on Bolshaia Morskaia, in fact right across from the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, an interesting art enterprise has been organ• ized w1der the title "Contemporary Art". A small group of artists - , , Lev Bakst, Aleksandr Golovin, Konstantin Korovin, Evge• nii Lanceray, Vladimir von Mekk, Konstantin Somov, and Prince Sergei Shcher~ batov, witil tile assistance of engineer S. F. Sovin -have set themselves the task of expanding the sphere of so-called applied art in and of raising the level of our art industry. In its aspiration to bring art closer to life, this group, made up primarily of young artists, has decided not to limit itself to working without any clear system, but to pool its resources with tl10se of otl1er artists working in the field of applied art. "Contemporary Art" constitutes a center where every artist who has sometiling of his own to say and the desire to say it, can work in this arena witil complete independence and freedom. The principle goal of applied art is to develop tile artistic taste of society us• ing objects of domestic use, and "Contemporary Art" is pursuing this goal on a v~ry large scale. Not confining itself to tile production of various artistic func• tional objects, it has gone furtiler and begw1 with tl1eir actual nsage - ·mth rooms that are lived in. TI1e entire space of "Contemporary Art" comprises a se• ries of rooms, each of which is entirely decorated and f.mushed by a single artist. Everything, from t..he walls, the color of the wall-paper or paint, tile ceilings, floors, stoves and lighting to the furniture and decorations - is harmoniously combined togetiler, everything is created according to t..he artist's inspiration. For the present, as a ftrst experinlent, a few of tilese rooms have been created: a din• ing room, boudoir, sitting room, a dark anteroom, and a vestibule. In each one of these rooms one senses the expression of an artist who has chosen each cor• ner, each chair, each window. Tban..~s to tl1e development of tile "new style" in '

1. The Contemporary Art enterprise was established in St. Petersburg in 1903 by Prince Sergei Shchcrbatov and V1adimir fon Mekk, as a combination showroom, gallery, and promotional center for new ideas in the applied and decorative arts. Its inaugural effort combined a one-man exhibi• tion of paintings by Konstantin Somov, a display of jewelry by Rene Lalique, and an "ideal home exhibition" comprising a series of rooms, each decorated by an individual artist. Unlike its Moscow . counterpart, the Exhibition of Architecture and Applied Art in the New Style (see the preceding section in this volume), Contemporary Art was plagued by charges of impracticality and dilettan• tism, the teren;ok designed by Aleksandr Golovin attracting particular hostility. 'Ihe enterprise soon ran into financial difficulties and closed after litde more than a year of activity. The exhibition is fully illustrated in Mir isku.rstva, Nos. 5-6 (1903). 2. "Sovremcnnoe isk-usstvo,'' Nit){l, No. 7 (1903), pp. 135-38. 266 Experimem/JKcnepnMeHT

the \Vest, where it has acquired a disti.."lctive, persistent pattern of its own, it is rather difficult in this field to get the public to appreciate a new word, since the public too has already established its own cliched vJew of the new style, the "style moderne". The word that was prodai.

Sergei Diaghilev, "Contemporary Art"3 Under. !his broad title there has emerged on Bolshaia Morskaia an interesting and serious artistic undextaking, whose principle participants happen to be ex-

· 3. "Sovremcnnoe iskusstvo," Mir ixkusstm, No. 3 (1903), pp. 22-24.