Museum world: two opinions about the future
The last month turned out to be rich in high -profile statements by the directors of Russian museums regarding the present and future of their institutions and the entire industry as a whole. The Russian Museum, Gazprom and the Ministry of Culture signed an agreement on the development of the National Restoration School. The Union of Museums of Russia released another manifesto, “philosophical text”, whose main idea is dedicated to the “mission of the museum – the keeper of the DNA of the nation and humanity”. And finally, the new Director of the Mlibum named after Pushkin Olga Galaktionova-she held her first press conference in a new status, which said a lot of interesting things. It is most interesting to look at this news from the point of view of rhetoric: what they said, as they said and what you can read after these words.
Recently, the directors of Russian museums prefer not to speak out. Firstly, many of those who spoke out are no longer the director (the most loud dismissal is Elizaveta Likhachev, who lost the chair of the GMIA 22 months after the appointment). Secondly, instead of them, the numbers, graphs and lists of top exhibitions should now more often say for the work of the museum. Thirdly, a museum is a business that does not tolerate fuss, as if directed in eternity, is sometimes better to be silent than to speak. All the louder there are words that are nevertheless uttered.
In March 2025, two opinions were encountered about the ways of the existence of museums in the new Russian reality: one sublimely Alarmist, the other was mundane household. The Union of Museums speaks of the cultural code of the nation, the education of feelings of fidelity and love for the homeland, soft power, mission. The Director of the Pushrooms is that it is time to put things in order, about the revision of purchases of recent years, the restructuring of personnel and the fact that after a half to two years everything will work like a clock. A document of the Union of Museums (and on it, as well as on all the manifestos similar to him, in the “hat” there is one name – “M. B. Piotrovsky”) is written so that each paragraph begins with the word “museum”. It looks like a mantra, a campaign, a conspiracy – the more this word you say with a capital letter, the closer to heaven you will ascend.
In this rhetoric, the « museum » is that which is above profane understanding. He is responsible no more than the preservation of the « DNA of the nation and humanity. » I would not advise using the terms from genetics in Russian humanitarian texts written in Russian, but without loud words about DNA in the manifesto, we read about the “high mission” of the museum-and “this mission threatens to blur under the pressure of the trend to see leisure enterprises in museums, make accounting machine records of success, as well as the detachment of public organizations from decision -making. » So we reached the most important thing in this document, to the concern of real, low -powered ones, it seems, for such a conversation by matters.
What concerns Piotrovsky and other museum workers from the Union most? The entertainment of many leisure and mass events held within the walls of the museum; She is as a criterion and the key to the success of exhibitions; blind machine -type rules and sanctions with which the museum is regulated; Closed personnel of personnel appointments (« The Museum is not a resting place for retirees »).
Assigned by the director of the MLS Olga Galaktionov in January, of course, is not a “retired”, but a man of a stranger to the historical and art museum. And in a couple of months she certainly did not. All the more interesting how she, referring to her own observations of this period, formulates her tasks. First of all, this is the rhetoric of the “Minister of Administrator”, a business executive who came to dry “a mountain of dirty dishes overgrown with a moss”. The image is strong – and if she thanks her immediate predecessor for Likhachev for the beginning of this process, then who is to blame for such an unsightly picture remains unclear. Irina Antonova was a long time, but for a long time (left the post in 2013). Only Marina Loshak (director from 2013 to 2023) remains. Then it turns out that it was with her « only children’s educational programs worked » perfectly « ; The “unhealthy” contemporary art flourished (Galaktionova says that with her there would be a “healthy” that has yet to be found); The bet was made on as if unnecessary blockbusters (“I am not used to blockbusters, but I’m used to working well”).
But these are past affairs – it is worth trying with Olga Galaktionova to look into the future. Firstly, “I came to“ Make Pushkinsky Great AGain ””-such a declaration is good for everyone, but it is unlikely to read it as a statement that the Great Museum is along with the Louvre, Prado, and the Metro Museum. This is completely, not so, the MiMi-a museum that grew out of the school of the casts, a museum of the complex history of completion, a wonderful one, but on the Hamburg account, not in the first ten. And Galaktionova herself seems to feel something like this: of all her predecessors, she offers to compare herself with Ivan Tsvetaev, whose main business was the work of enlightenment. However, he clarifies: “I want the lines to stand again to the museum” – as if the queue in themselves is a sign of the greatness of the institution.
And suddenly it is in the issue of queues, glory and priority tasks that Olga Galaktionova and the authors of the manifesto of the Union of Museums begin to get closer. Both sides (an effective manager and director of the “old type”, museum professionals) are actively protesting against the idea of making exhibitions by blockbusters. The glimpse cut and adjusted the exhibition plans of Elizabeth Likhacheva, something with ideological rezons (instead of the exhibition of trophies saved by Moscow restorers, there will be an exhibition “The Feat of the Museum” about those who helped to preserve the collections of domestic museums during the years of the Great Patriotic War), something with logistics-to quickly blind the personal expositions Easy, they have been in theowers more than once. Mikhail Piotrovsky sees an exhibition policy without a permanent race for blockbusters more quiet: “There are more exhibitions than necessary. We decided to reduce their number, this is already working on wear. There will be fewer of them, but for a long time. ”
Another common problem for the museum world was an acute lack of restorers. The Russian Museum is ready to engage in a school of restorers, which should be national, that is, to teach for the whole country (and then have branches in the regions). The Director of the PHMI is complaining of personnel hunger, they are going to attract interns from creative universities: “I, as a leader, believe that it is important to popularize the professions of a restorer and archaeologist.” But the word « science » is not that it was often pronounced at its press conference; Olga Galaktionova even believes that not every exhibition needs to be made by a catalog. The idea is strange, which looks like a hint of future purges in the scientific departments (if you do not write catalogs, then why there are so many employees), or to change the working functions of museum art historians – but “dismissal of packs”, on the other hand, did not promise the director. It is precisely the MIMI as a result of the “general cleaning” by the museum that dreamers from the Museum Union are talking about – a museum, whose key tasks are the preservation, study and representation of the funds – is not yet clear.
