The basis of the exhibition of the museum’s collections was made up of more than a hundred works of various types of decorative, applied and fine arts: porcelain, cloisonné and painted enamel, embroidery, stone carving, bone, wood, sculpture, as well as traditional Chinese painting and graphics. It occupies only one room, but shows the diversity of Chinese artistic traditions.
The pieces on display came to the museum between 1920 and 1950 from the Ufa Provincial Museum, the Ufa Provincial Chek, the Social Security Fund, Moscow and the Petrograd Museum. There are also items purchased from individuals. The works of contemporary Chinese authors come from the international competitive exhibitions “Ural Triennial of Printed Graphics”, held in Ufa from 2001 to 2019.
Two rooms are dedicated to the exhibition of paintings by Lu Lin, a young Chinese painter whose popularity grows with each exhibition. Why: It is clear when you see the exhibition.
Lu Lin’s painting is the author’s version of modern Chinese painting. It is based on traditional Chinese mentality, but expressed through modern art.
His exhibition is called “Beyond the Forest” and, it seems, should consist of landscapes. At first glance, Lu Lin really paints landscapes. They simply do not fit into the canons of the genre.
The artist himself explains it this way: “My goal is not to ‘copy nature’, but to achieve order, using chaotic lines and sometimes sharp, abstract color combinations. I believe that landscape painting not only represents the living world around us, but also “Reflects spiritual and social problems. In my paintings, dense bushes or animals often appear against the background of architectural ruins: this is how I try to convey the contradiction between the natural and the industrial, to reflect the history and background. I like things that have no limits and no end, I like this constant feeling of uncertainty that brings freshness to creativity and at the same time the same difficult questions that I will face at every stage of my creativity remain unanswered: how to express on a canvas, for example, Who are we? Where we come from? Where we go?
Photo: Gulnaz Danilova
The sculptures of famous masters of the republic included in the exhibition, Vladimir Lobanov and Firdant Nuriakhmetov, fit very appropriately into the semantic context of the exhibition.
– What is “The Other Side of the Forest” if not our life? – says art critic and deputy director of the museum of scientific works Svetlana Ignatenko. – One side of the forest is pristine nature, untouched by man, the other is the part in which the urban and technological initiatives of man, a resident of the metropolis, have been introduced. But it is precisely this inhabitant, especially today, who fights with such passion for nature: he needs his clean air, it is so important for him to become an integral part of a river, forest, field, that is, to merge with nature, forming with he an almost Nesterovian harmonious whole.
Photo: Gulnaz Danilova
