The exhibition is the prelude to a programme of Petersburg art in Moscow, the first of ten exhibitions, and dedicated to the legendary figures of Leningrad’s bohemian period at the end of the eighties, beginning of the nineties, the aesthetes that emerged from the masses and have since become part of the official establishment. Leningrad, having sparked into life, turned for a while into the most interesting place in the world, just as it had done at the beginning of the twentieth century. Part-famous and part-forgotten names are grouped into an archive of the dead and alive who will emerge
in the form of their personal belongings, crumbling hopes, letters and photographs. Drawing musicians, singing artists, these these are the Renaissance people whom we can now remember only with a sense of sadness in these times of total disillusionment.
PETER BELYI
