STEINMETZ—CONTEMPLATING GOGOL
ЛЕОН СТЕЙНМЕЦ—РАЗМЫШЛЯЯ О ГОГОЛЕ
The Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation
The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts
Moscow, Russia
December 1, 2009 - January 10, 2010
Steinmetz—Contemplating Gogol was the ideal next chapter to the dialogue that began with the 2007 landmark exhibit at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts — Art in America: Three Hundred Years of Innovation — which stimulated in Russia a new interest in American art. The Steinmetz exhibit continued the theme of innovation, while at the same time offering new interpretations of Russian culture itself.
The year 2009 commemorated the 200th anniversary of the birth of Nikolai Gogol, the brilliant literary source and inspiration for Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. This was only the second time in over fifty years that there was a solo exhibit by an American artist at the Pushkin Museum.
The works were not illustrations of events in Gogol’s writings, but rather related to the themes that preoccupied Gogol throughout his life—his love for Italy, where he lived for years, his fascination with theater, and his religious quests and torments.
