The deputy director of Tretyakov gallery of Moscow, Ekatirina Seleznyova is a very attractive woman. Her manner of speaking, ideas, ability to listen to people attentively remind about the fact that the biggest treasure of the Russians is not the gas and oil, but the people. Namely, the Russian intelligentsia representatives, who can be very clever and patient. Our conversation with the deputy director of the Russian main museum took place in Astana, where representatives of different nations had gathered to speak about the general. For Ekatirina Seleznyova the general is the human being, who, as she thinks, knows what he/she wants from the life in our days very well. They are not interested in arts much, which is the failure of artists.
– Have you noticed that usually newspapers don’t write much about arts and cultural events become “top news” very rarely? Why is it so?
– I think that the Media covers the cultural events and arts only when something unprecedented has happened, something has been stolen, when arts organizations don’t count some money and fall in scandal due to such reasons. In such cases arts appears in the focus of news. It seems that now no one wants to write about cultural events and routine developments since it seems not to be fashionable. The arts reporters are writing for each other, they are not writing for those people, who may need it and who don’t know about arts. Generally I think that the problem of our society is not the lack of culture, but the lack of people involved in culture (I think it is common in the whole world too). Generally such people are few and they are talking to each other mainly, thus a big part of the society is slowly becoming alienated from education and arts. I see many unsolved problems here. Firstly, we should confess that we are still under the influence of the Soviet environment and we think that we should teach arts to the generations. There is no need to teach elder people, people are taught in their families when they are small. It is very difficult to teach a young man who has a beard already. Young people know what they want to get from the life very well. It is a pity that education is not included in that system of values. Even during the Soviet times workers understood that it was shameful not to be educated. Even if they felt that they were not educated enough, they didn’t show it and did not demonstrate. However, now people are proud of not being educated and this is the fashion of our days. I don’t want to seem like a museum worker who complaints all the time, but I see that our state and your states are preparing people not to be educated. Please tell me whether you see advertisements of good staging, galleries, books on TV channels? I think you don’t. Instead of that we see numerous advertisements of beer and other drinks. We often don’t see the changes that are happening to us. Those changes are evident. Recently one of my friends from Switzerland and I were walking in the center of Moscow and she was surprised to see that almost all young boys and girls were drinking beer in the street. It looks bad, it is vulgar. We are advertising that vulgar type of living and are importing such styles into our lives.
– Is it possible to make people visit arts institutions by advertising museums or theatres?
– Besides advertisement there should be also hours when people can enter such institutions without charge.
– Does Tretyakov gallery have such hours when people can enter it for free?
– Museums cannot do it themselves. Our gallery is owned by the state and we just don’t have such right to define such hours. Now everything is under control and if we open our doors for certain groups of people they will tell us that we are making profits. The commission will bring a court case against us. This issue should be solved based on the law. There are huge discounts for children under 18 in the whole world, but at our gallery there is only one day per month when people can visit the gallery without any payment. As a result of this situation mainly pensioners are visiting the gallery on such days since mostly they are interested in entering the museum without any payment.
– It seems that people like to visit museums when they are small and then when they are old. Why?
– Schoolchildren visit museums as excursion with their group and upon leaving they think that they have seen everything already and they cannot see anything new in museums any more. It is happening because of the fact that we are hardly trying to teach each visitor by all means. There is no need to teach, we should attract people into the process of creation.
– How?
– It is very difficult. Now education is separated from the practice. Young people, who usually want to get everything at once, cannot find jobs since the vacancies in arts institutions are occupied by people who had to get retired long before and leave their places for young people. The median age of museum workers is 45-50, which is a great problem. Young people don’t have a place in museums. For instance, the Tretyakov gallery wants to recruit trainees from all over the world and teach them, but we don’t have the corresponding license and permit. It is a common thing in our country that galleries can be coordinated by a person who, at least, is a deputy director. It is very strange. I believe that the most interesting presentation can be done by the youth with their ambitions and sensuality. I strongly believe that no project can be successful if the organizers have worked with a body temperature equal to 36,6. There should be ambitions, instable breath in projects. The only way that will bring people to museums can be found through touching and feeling that breath. Arts universities and museums shall work together, students can prepare their study works in museums. They can do it for free and even virtually by using the Internet access of museums. In our reality education differs from the practice work. We are losing good students since they are faced with a choice, where they usually chose the option, which gives them more money. We have brilliant young specialists, who find their places in abroad. At first we worried about the “outflow of brains” much, but now we have got used to that situation and we think that people are free to move wherever they like. However, it is very bad since we are losing good specialists. Young people should have jobs, and it is necessary to approach their education to their jobs to the extent possible. Plus, we should give up the appearance of teaching them all the time and taking the role of teacher all the time.
– In any case it is easier to live without culture since you don’t doubt, you don’t regret and you are walking more confidently.
– Certainly it looks like that at first glance. Maybe people really don’t need culture and they are satisfied with the life they have. Culture is becoming an elite branch and is becoming narrow to the extent of being able to survive basing on that branch only. Such people are disappearing.
– There are officially accepted artists who campaign and praise the policy of the authorities. Do you think it is a normal thing?
– Culture is administered in a wrong way. It is very dangerous when the leaders of arts movements are appointed from the “top”. People, who are rather far from arts, see the works of such artists and they see that something is wrong and they say that they don’t need such arts if it is what they have. Generally you can’t obligate the culture to enter into the soul of people. Culture should be something like the air. Now that air is accessible only to some people who are wearing spacesuits, who have received that air due to their good education or families and now they are using that air with limited capacities. The majority of the society is breathing other type of air. I think that the administrative bodies should work to make the content of the air the same for everyone. The air of arts and education is very clean and wonderful. The respect to the human being lies in the bases of arts. Educated people understand very well, for example, where patriotism ends and where nationalism starts.
– We stopped in Moscow during our trip to Astana. I saw a very strange thing – I would prefer a longer way, which would not pass through Moscow.
– I understand you very well. I have a good friend, who is seven years old. He is Russian, but his blood is mixed with the blood of old and beautiful nations, and often it happens that his character that has come from those nations is prevailing. One day, when we were coming back from the kindergarten, this wonderful kid with black eyes told me, “They don’t want to play with me, they say I am black, but I am not black, I am clean, I am having bath every day…” I am saying this to make it clear that culture is not the acceptance of the beauty and high values only; culture is the acceptance of the beauty that we are meeting in our life. This is what is missing. Now Moscow looks very like the Babylon. You can’t meet beautiful, innocent and wonderful old ladies in Arbat any more, this group has disappeared. The citizens of the center of Moscow are those people, who have much money and can buy apartments there. As for them, they have not earned that money in fair conditions. The life is very cruel in Moscow, in order to survive there people are pushing each other with their arms and are extracting whatever they can so that they get more to survive. I understand it very well that people, who don’t have money for dinner, cannot go to museums.